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COLUMBIA  UNIVERSITY  GERMANIC  STUDIES 
Vol.  II.     No.  II. 


TYPES  OF  WELTSCHMERZ 
IN  GERMAN  POETRY 


BY 


WILHELM  ALFRED  BRAUN,  Ph.D. 

SOMETIME    FELLOW    IN     GERMANIC    LANGUAGES    AND 
LITERATURES,    COLUMBIA    UNIVERSITY 


THE  COLUMBIA   UNIVERSITY  PRESS 
The  Macmillan  Company,  Agents 

London  :   Macmillan  &  Co.,  Ltd. 
1905 

All  rishts  reserved 


Copyright,  igos 
By  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY 

Printed  from  type  September,  igos 


THE    MASON    PRESS 
SYRACUSE,     NEW    YORK 


143 

F4 

5"! 


NOTE 


The  author  of  this  essay  has  attempted  to  make,  as  he  him- 
self phrases  it,  "a  modest  contribution  to  the  natural  history  of 
Weltschmerz."  What  goes  by  that  name  is  no  doubt  some- 
what elusive ;  one  can  not  easily  delimit  and  characterize  it  with 
scientific  accuracy.  Nevertheless  the  word  corresponds  to  a 
fairly  definite  range  of  psychical  reactions  which  are  of  great 
interest  in  modern  poetry,  especially  German  poetry.  The 
phenomenon  is  worth  studying  in  detail.  In  undertaking  a 
study  of  it  Mr.  Braun  thought,  and  I  readily  concurred  in  the 
opinion,  that  he  would  do  best  not  to  essay  an  exhaustive  his- 
tory, but  to  select  certain  conspicuously  interesting  types  and 
proceed  by  the  method  of  close  analysis,  characterization  and 
comparison.  I  consider  his  work  a  valuable  contribution  to 
literary  scholarship. 

Calvin  Thomas. 
Columbia  University,  June,  1905 


PREFACE 

The  work  which  is  presented  in  the  following  pages  is 
intended  to  be  a  modest  contribution  to  the  natural  history  of 
Weltschmerz. 

The  writer  has  endeavored  first  of  all  to  define  carefully  the 
distinction  between  pessimism  and  Weltschmerz;  then  to  clas- 
sify the  latter,  both  as  to  its  origin  and  its  forms  of  expression, 
and  to  indicate  briefly  its  relation  to  mental  pathology  and  to 
contemporary  social  and  political  conditions.  The  three  poets 
selected  for  discussion,  were  chosen  because  they  represent  dis- 
tinct types,  under  which  probably  all  other  poets  of  Welt- 
schmerz may  be  classified,  or  to  which  they  will  at  least  be 
found  analogous ;  and  to  the  extent  to  which  such  is  the  case, 
the  treatise  may  be  regarded  as  exhaustive.  In  the  case  of  each 
author  treated,  the  development  of  the  peculiar  phase  of  Welt- 
schmerz characteristic  of  him  has  been  traced,  and  analyzed 
with  reference  to  its  various  modes  of  expression.  Holderlin 
is  the  idealist,  Lenau  exhibits  the  profoundly  pathetic  side  of 
Weltschmerz,  while  Heine  is  its  satirist.  They  have  been  con- 
sidered in  this  order,  because  they  represent  three  progressive 
stages  of  Weltschmerz  viewed  as  a  psychological  process : 
Holderlin  naive,  Lenau  self-conscious,  Heine  endeavoring  to 
conceal  his  melancholy  beneath  the  disguise  of  self-irony. 

It  is  a  pleasure  to  tender  my  grateful  acknowledgments  to  my 
former  Professors,  Calvin  Thomas  and  William  H.  Carpenter 
of  Columbia  University,  and  Camillo  von  Klenze  and  Starr 
Willard  Cutting  of  the  University  of  Chicago,  under  whose 
stimulating  direction  and  never-failing  assistance  my  graduate 
studies  were  carried  on. 


CONTENTS 

Chapter  I — Introduction i 

Chapter  II — Holderlin 9 

Chapter  III — Lenau 35 

Chapter  IV — Heine 59 

Chapter  V — Bibliog-raphy 85 


CHAPTER  I 


Introduction 


The  purpose  of  the  following  study  is  to  examine  closely 
certain  German  authors  of  modern  times,  whose  lives  and  writ- 
ings exemplify  in  an  unusually  striking  degree  that  peculiar 
phase  of  lyric  feeling  which  has  characterized  German  liter- 
ature, often  in  a  more  or  less  epidemic  form,  since  the  days  of 
"Werther,"  and  to  which,  at  an  early  period  in  the  nineteenth 
century,  was  assigned  the  significant  name  "Weltschmerz." 

With  this  side  of  the  poet  under  investigation,  there  must  of 
necessity  be  an  enquiry,  not  only  into  his  writings,  his  expressed 
feelings,  but  also  his  physical  and  mental  constitution  on  the 
one  hand,  and  into  his  theory  of  existence  in  general  on  the 
other.  Psychology  and  philosophy  then  are  the  two  adjacent 
fields  into  which  it  may  become  necessary  to  pursue  the  subject 
in  hand,  and  for  this  reason  it  is  only  fair  to  call  attention  to 
the  difficulties  which  surround  the  student  of  literature  in  dis- 
cussing philosophical  ideas  or  psychological  phenomena.  In- 
trepid indeed  would  it  be  for  him  to  attempt  a  final  judgment  in 
these  bearings  of  his  subject,  where  wise  men  have  diflfered  and 
doctors  have  disagreed. 

Although  sometimes  loosely  used  as  synonyms,  it  is  necessary 
to  note  that  there  is  a  well-defined  distinction  between  Welt- 
schmerz  and  pessimism.  Weltschmerz  may  be  defined  as  the 
poetic  expression  of  an  abnormal  sensitiveness  of  the  feelings  to 
the  moral  and  physical  evils  and  misery  of  existence — a  condi- 
tion which  may  or  may  not  be  based  upon  a  reasoned  conviction 
that  the  sum  of  human  misery  is  greater  than  the  sum  of  human 
happiness.  It  is  usually  characterized  also  by  a  certain  lack  of 
will-energy,  a  sort  of  sentimental  yielding  to  these  painful  emo- 
tions. It  is  therefore  entirely  a  matter  of  "Gemiit."  Pessi- 
I  1 


mism,  on  the  other  hand,  purports  to  be  a  theory  of  existence, 
the  result  of  dehberate  philosophic  argument  and  investigation, 
by  which  its  votaries  have  reached  the  dispassionate  conclusion 
that  there  is  no  real  good  or  pleasure  in  the  world  that  is  not 
clearly  outweighed  by  evil  or  pain,  and  that  therefore  self- 
destruction,  or  at  least  final  annihilation  is  the  consummation 
devoutly  to  be  wished. 

James  Sully,  in  his  elaborate  treatise  on  Pessimism,^  divides 
it,  however,  into  reasoned  and  unreasoned  Pessimism,  including 
Weltschmerz  under  the  latter  head.  This  is  entirely  compatible 
with  the  definition  of  Weltschmerz  which  has  been  attempted 
above.  But  it  is  interesting  to  note  the  attitude  of  the  pessi- 
mistic school  of  philosophy  toward  this  unreasoned  pessimism. 
It  emphatically  disclaims  any  interest  in  or  connection  with  it, 
and  describes  all  those  who  are  afflicted  with  the  malady  as 
execrable  fellows — to  quote  Hartmann — :  "Klageweiber  mann- 
lichen  und  weiblichen  Geschlechts,  welche  am  meisten  zur  Dis- 
creditierung  des  Pessimismus  beigetragen  haben,  die  sich  in 
ewigem  Lamento  ergehen,  und  entweder  unaufhorlich  in 
Thranen  schwimmen,  oder  bitter  wie  Wermut  und  Essig,  sich 
selbst  und  andern  das  Dasein  noch  mehr  vergallen ;  eine  jam- 
merliche  Situation  des  Stimmungspessimismus,  der  sie  nicht 
leben  und  nicht  sterben  lasst."^  And  yet  Hartmann  him- 
self does  not  hesitate  to  admit  that  this  very  condition  of 
individual  Weltschmerz,  or  "Zerrissenheit,"  is  a  necessary 
and  inevitable  stage  in  the  progress  of  the  mind  toward  that 
clarified  universal  Weltschmerz  which  is  based  upon  theoretical 
insight,  namely  pessimism  in  its  most  logical  sense.  This  being 
granted,  we  shall  not  be  far  astray  in  assuming  that  it  is  also 
the  stage  to  which  the  philosophic  pessimist  will  sometimes 
revert,  when  a  strong  sense  of  his  own  individuality  asserts 
itself. 

If  we  attempt  a  classification  of  Weltschmerz  with  regard  to 
its  essence,  or,  better  perhaps,  with  regard  to  its  origin,  we  shall 
find  that  the  various  types  may  be  classed  under  one  of  two 

*  "Pessimism,  a  History  and  a  Criticism,"  London,  1877. 

^  Ed.  von  Hartmann:  "Zur  Geschichte  und  Begriindung  des  Pessimismus," 
Leipzig,  Hermann  Haacke,  p.    187. 


heads :  either  as  cosmic  or  as  egoistic.  The  representatives  of 
cosmic  Weltschmerz  are  those  poets  whose  first  concern  is  not 
their  personal  fate,  their  own  unhappiness,  it  may  be,  but  who 
see  first  and  foremost  the  sad  fate  of  humanity  and  regard  their 
own  misfortunes  merely  as  a  part  of  the  common  destiny.  The 
representatives  of  the  second  type  are  those  introspective 
natures  who  are  first  and  chiefly  aware  of  their  own  misery 
and  finally  come  to  regard  it  as  representative  of  universal  evil. 
The  former  proceed  from  the  general  to  the  particular,  the  latter 
from  the  particular  to  the  general.  But  that  these  types  must 
necessarily  be  entirely  distinct  in  all  cases,  as  Marchand^  asserts, 
seems  open  to  serious  doubt.  It  is  inconceivable  that  a  poet 
into  whose  personal  experience  no  shadows  have  fallen  should 
take  the  woes  of  humanity  very  deeply  to  heart ;  nor  again  could 
we  imagine  that  one  who  has  brooded  over  the  unhappy  condi- 
tion of  mankind  in  general  should  never  give  expression  to  a 
note  of  personal  sorrow.  It  is  in  the  complexity  of  motives  in 
one  and  the  same  subject  that  the  difficulty  lies  in  making  rigid 
and  sharp  distinctions.  In  some  cases  Weltschmerz  may  arise 
from  honest  conviction  or  genuine  despair,  in  others  it  may  be 
something  entirely  artificial,  merely  a  cloak  to  cover  personal 
defects.  Sometimes  it  may  even  be  due  to  a  desire  to  pose  as  a 
martyr,  and  sometimes  nothing  more  than  an  attempt  to  ape  the 
prevailing  fashion.  To  these  types  Wilhelm  Scherer  adds 
"Miissigganger,  welche  sich  die  Zeit  mit  iibler  Laune  vertreiben, 
missvergniigte  Lyriker,  deren  Gedichte  nicht  mehr  gelesen  wer- 
den,  und  Spatzenkopfe,  welche  den  Pessimismus  fiir  besonderen 
Tiefsinn  halten  und  um  jeden  Preis  tiefsinnig  erscheinen 
wollen."- 

But  it  is  with  Weltschmerz  in  its  outward  manifestations  as 
it  finds  expression  in  the  poet's  writings,  that  we  shall  be  chiefly 
concerned  in  the  following  pages.  And  here  the  subdivisions, 
if  we  attempt  to  classify,  must  be  almost  as  numerous  as  the 
representatives  themselves.  In  Holderlin  we  have  the  ardent 
Hellenic  idealist ;  Lenau  gives  expression  to  all  the  pathos  of 

'  "Les  Poetes  Lyriques  cle  I'Autriche,"  Paris,   1886,  p.  293. 

^  "Vortrage  und  Aufsatze  zur  Geschichte  des  geistigen  Lebens  in  Deutscliland 
und  Oesterreich,"   Berlin,    1874,  p.   413. 


Weltschmerz,  Heine  is  its  satirist,  the  misanthrope,  while  in 
Raabe  we  even  have  a  pessimistic  humorist. 

This  brief  list  needs  scarcely  be  supplemented  by  other  names 
of  poets  of  melancholy,  such  as  Reinhold  Lenz,  Heinrich  von 
Kleist,  Robert  Southey,  Byron,  Leopardi,  in  order  to  command 
our  attention  by  reason  of  the  tragic  fate  which  ended  the  lives 
of  nearly  all  of  these  men,  the  most  frequent  and  the  most  ter- 
rible being  that  of  insanity.  It  is  of  course  a  matter  of  common 
knowledge  that  chronic  melancholy  or  the  persistent  brooding 
over  personal  misfortune  is  an  almost  inevitable  preliminary  to 
mental  derangement.  And  when  this  melancholy  takes  root  in 
the  finely  organized  mind  of  genius,  it  is  only  to  be  expected 
that  the  result  will  be  even  more  disastrous  than  in  the  case  of 
the  ordinary  mind.  Lombroso  holds  the  opinion  that  if  men  of 
genius  are  not  all  more  or  less  insane,  that  is,  if  the  "spheres 
of  influence"  of  genius  and  insanity  do  not  actually  overlap, 
they  are  at  least  contiguous  at  many  points,  so  that  the 
transition  from  the  former  to  the  latter  is  extremely  easy  and 
even  natural.  But  genius  in  itself  is  not  an  abnormal  mental 
condition.  It  does  not  even  consist  of  an  extraordinary  mem- 
ory, vivid  imagination,  quickness  of  judgment,  or  of  a  combi- 
nation of  all  of  these.  Kant  defines  genius  as  the  talent  of 
invention.  Originality  and  productiveness  are  the  fundamental 
elements  of  genius.  And  it  is  an  almost  instinctive  force  which 
urges  the  author  on  in  his  creative  work.  In  the  main  his 
activity  is  due  less  to  free  will  than  to  this  inner  compulsion. 

"Ich  halte  diesen  Drang  vergebens  auf, 
Der  Tag  und  Nacht  in  meinem  Busen  wechselt. 
Wenn  ich  nicht  sinnen  oder  dichten  soil, 
So  ist  das  Leben  mir  kein  Leben  mehr," 

says  Goethe's  Tasso.^  If  this  impulse  of  genius  is  embodied  in 
a  strong  physical  organism,  as  for  example  in  the  case  of 
Shakespeare  and  Goethe,  there  need  be  no  detriment  to  physical 
health ;  otherwise,  and  especially  if  there  is  an  inherited  ten- 
dency to  disease,  there  is  almost  sure  to  be  a  physical  collapse. 
Specialists  in  the  subject  have  pointed  out  that  violent  passions 
are  even  more  potent  in  producing  mental  disease  than  mere 

^  Act  5,  Sc.  2. 


intellectual  over-exertion.  And  these  are  certainly  character- 
istic in  a  very  high  degree  of  the  mind  of  genius.  It  has  often 
been  remarked  that  it  is  the  corona  spinosa  of  genius  to  feel  all 
pain  more  intensely  than  do  other  men.  Schopenhauer  says 
"der,  in  welchem  der  Genius  lebt,  leidet  am  meisten."  It  is 
only  going  a  step  further  then,  when  Hamerling  writes  to  his 
friend  Moser :  "Schliesslich  ist  es  doch  nur  der  Kranke,  der 
sich  das  Leid  der  ganzen  Welt  zu  Herzen  nimmt." 

Radestock,  in  his  study  "Genie  und  Wahnsinn,"  mentions  and 
elaborates  among  others  the  following  points  of  resemblance 
between  the  mind  of  genius  and  the  insane  mind :  an  abnormal 
activity  of  the  imagination,  very  rapid  succession  of  ideas,  ex- 
treme concentration  of  thought  upon  a  single  subject  or  idea, 
and  lastly,  what  would  seem  the  cardinal  point,  a  weakness  of 
will-energ}',  the  lack  of  that  force  which  alone  can  serve  to 
bring  under  control  all  these  other  unruly  elements  and  give 
balance  to  what  must  otherwise  be  an  extremely  one-sided 
mechanism.  Here  again  the  exception  may  be  taken  to  prove 
the  rule.  It  is  not  too  much,  I  think,  to  assert  that  Goethe 
could  never  have  become  so  uniquely  great,  not  even  through 
the  splendid  versatility  of  his  genius,  but  for  that  incomparable 
self-control,  which  he  made  the  watchword  of  his  life.  And  in 
the  case  of  the  poet  of  Weltschmerz  the  presence  or  absence  of 
this  quality  may  even  decide  whether  he  shall  rise  superior  to 
his  beclouded  condition  or  perish  in  the  gloom.  The  con- 
clusion at  which  Radestock  arrives  is  that  genius,  as  the 
expression  of  the  most  intense  mental  activity,  occupies  the 
middle  ground,  as  it  were,  between  the  normal  healthy  state  on 
the  one  hand,  and  the  abnormal,  pathological  state  on  the  other, 
and  has  without  doubt  many  points  of  contact  with  mental  dis- 
ease ;  and  that  although  the  elements  which  genius  has  in 
common  with  insanity  may  not  be  strong  enough  in  themselves 
to  induce  the  transition  from  the  former  to  the  latter  state,  yet 
when  other  aggravating  causes  are  added,  such  as  physical 
disease,  violent  emotions  or  passions,  overwork,  the  pressure  or 
distress  of  outward  circumstances,  the  highly  gifted  individual 
is  much  more  liable  to  cross  the  line  of  demarkation  between 
the  two  mental  states  than  is  the  average  mind,  which  is  more 


remote  from  that  line.  If  this  can  be  asserted  of  genius  in 
general,  it  must  be  even  more  particularly  and  widely  applicable 
in  reference  to  a  combination  of  genius  and  Weltschmerz.  We 
shall  find  pathetic  examples  in  the  first  two  types  selected  for 
examination. 

Having  thus  introduced  the  subject  in  its  most  general  bear- 
ings and  aspects,  it  remains  for  us  to  review  briefly  its  histor- 
ical background. 

Weltschmerz  is  essentially  a  symptom  of  a  period  of  conflict, 
of  transition.  The  powerful  reaction  which  marks  the 
eighteenth  century — a  reaction  against  all  traditional  intel- 
lectual authority,  and  a  struggle  for  the  emancipation  of  the 
individual,  of  research,  of  inspiration  and  of  genius — reached 
its  high-water  mark  in  Germany  in  the  seventies.  But  with 
the  unrestrained  outbursts  of  the  champions  of  Storm  and 
Stress  the  problem  was  by  no  means  solved ;  there  remained  the 
basic  conflict  between  the  idea  of  personal  liberty  and  the 
strait-jacket  of  Frederician  absolutism,  the  conflict  between 
the  dynastic  and  the  national  idea  of  the  state.  Should  the 
individual  yield  a  blind,  unreasoned  submission  to  the  state  as 
to  a  divinely  instituted  arbitrary  authority,  good  or  bad,  or  was 
the  state  to  be  regarded  as  the  conscious  and  voluntary  cooper- 
ation of  its  subjects  for  the  general  good?  It  was,  moreover, 
a  time  not  only  of  open  and  active  revolt,  as  represented  by  the 
spirit  of  Klinger,  but  also  of  great  emotional  stirrings,  and  sen- 
timental yearnings  of  such  passive  natures  as  Holty.  Rous- 
seau's plea  for  a  simplified  and  more  natural  life  had  exerted  a 
mighty  influence.  And  what  has  a  most  important  bearing 
upon  the  relation  between  these  intellectual  currents  and  Welt- 
schmerz— these  minds  were  lacking  in  the  discipline  implied  in 
our  modern  scientific  training.  Scientific  exactness  of  think- 
ing had  not  become  an  integral  part  of  education.  Hence  the 
difference  between  the  pessimism  of  Ibsen  and  the  romantic 
Weltschmerz  of  these  uncritical  minds. 

In  accounting  for  the  tremendous  efifect  produced  by  his 
"Werther,"  Goethe  compares  his  work  to  the  bit  of  fuse  which 
explodes  the  mine,  and  says  that  the  shock  of  the  explosion  was 
so  great  because  the  young  generation  of  the  day  had  already 


undermined  itself,  and  its  members  now  burst  forth  individ- 
ually with  their  exaggerated  demands,  unsatisfied  passions  and 
imaginary  sufferings.^  And  in  estimating  the  influences  which 
had  prepared  the  way  for  this  mental  disposition,  Goethe  em- 
phasizes the  influence  of  English  literature.  Young's  "Night 
Thoughts,"  Gray's  "Elegy,"  Goldsmith's  "Deserted  Village," 
even  "Hamlet"  and  his  monologues  haunted  all  minds. 
"Everyone  knew  the  principal  passages  by  heart,  and  everyone 
believed  he  had  a  right  to  be  just  as  melancholy  as  the  Prince 
of  Denmark,  even  though  he  had  seen  no  ghost  and  had  no 
royal  father  to  avenge."  Finally  Ossian  had  provided  an  emi- 
nently suitable  setting, — under  the  darkly  lowering  sky  the 
endless  gray  heath,  peopled  with  the  shadowy  forms  of  de- 
parted heroes  and  withered  maidens.  To  quote  the  substance 
of  Goethe's  criticism :-  Amid  such  influences  and  surround- 
ings, occupied  with  fads  and  studies  of  this  sort,  lacking  all  in- 
centive from  without  to  any  important  activity  and  confronted 
by  the  sole  prospect  of  having  to  drag  out  a  humdrum  existence, 
men  began  to  reflect  with  a  sort  of  sullen  exultation  upon  the 
possibility  of  departing  this  life  at  will,  and  to  find  in  this 
thought  a  scant  amelioration  of  the  ills  and  tedium  of  the  times. 
This  disposition  was  so  general  that  "Werther"  itself  exerted 
a  powerful  influence,  because  it  everywhere  struck  a  responsive 
chord  and  publicly  and  tangibly  exhibited  the  true  inwardness 
of  a  morbid  youthful  illusion.^ 

Nor  did  the  dawning  nineteenth  century  bring  relief.  No 
other  period  of  Prussian  history,  says  Heinrich  von  Treitschke,* 
is  wrapped  in  so  deep  a  gloom  as  the  first  decade  of  the  reign 
of  Frederick  William  III.  It  was  a  time  rich  in  hidden  intel- 
lectual forces,  and  yet  it  bore  the  stamp  of  that  uninspired 
Philistinism  which  is  so  abundantly  evidenced  by  the  barren 

^  "Gcethes  Werke,"  Weimar  ed.  Vol.  28,  p.  22^  f. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  216  f. 

'  In  view  of  Goethe's  own  words,  then,  the  caution  of  a  recent  critic  (Felix 
Melchior  in  Lift.  Forscli.  XXVII  Heft,  Berlin,  1903)  against  applying  the  term 
Weltschmerz  to  "Werther,"  would  seem  to  miss  the  mark  entirely.  Werther  is  a 
type,  just  as  truly  as  is  Faust,  though  in  a  smaller  way,  and  the  malady  which  he 
typifies  has  its  ultimate  origin  in  the  development  of  public  life, — the  very  condi- 
tion which  this  critic  insists  upon  as  a  mark  of  Weltschmerz  in  the  proper  appli- 
cation of  the  term. 

*  "Historische  und  politische  Aufsatze,"  Leipzig,   1897.     Vol.   4. 


8 

commonplace  character  of  its  architecture  and  art.  Genius 
there  was,  indeed,  but  never  were  its  opportunities  for  public 
usefulness  more  limited.  It  was  as  though  the  greatness  of  the 
days  of  the  second  Frederick  lay  like  a  paralyzing  weight  upon 
this  generation.  And  this  oppressing  sense  of  impotence  was 
followed,  after  the  Napoleonic  Wars,  by  the  bitterness  of  dis- 
appointment, all  the  more  keenly  felt  by  reason  of  this  first 
reawakening  of  the  national  consciousness.  Great  had  been 
the  expectations,  enormous  the  sacrifice ;  exceedingly  small  was 
the  gain  to  the  individual.^  And  the  resultant  dissonance  was 
the  same  as  that  to  which  Alfred  de  Musset  gave  expression  in 
the  words :  "The  malady  of  the  present  century  is  due  to  two 
causes;  the  people  who  have  passed  through  1793  and  18 14 
bear  in  their  hearts  two  wounds.  All  that  was  is  no  more ;  all 
that  will  be  is  not  yet.  Do  not  hope  to  find  elsewhere  the 
secret  of  our  ills."^ 

This  then  in  briefest  outline  is  the  transition  from  the  cen- 
tury of  individualism  and  autocracy  to  the  nineteenth  century 
of  democracy.  Small  wonder  that  the  struggle  claimed  its 
victims  in  those  individuals  who,  unable  to  find  a  firm  basis  of 
conviction  and  principle,  vacillated  constantly  between  instinc- 
tive adherence  to  old  traditions,  and  unreasoned  inclination  to 
the  new  order  of  things. 

'As  early  as  1797  Holderlin's  Hyperion  laments:  "Mein  Geschaft  auf  Erden 
ist  aus.  Ich  bin  voll  Willens  an  die  Arbeit  gegangen,  habe  geblutet  daruber,  und 
die  Welt  um  keinen  Pfennig  reicher  gemacht."  ("Holderlin's  gesammelte  Dich- 
tungen,  herausgegeben  von  B.  Litzmann,"  Stuttgart,  Cotta,  undated.  Vol.  II,  p. 
68.)  Several  decades  later  Heine  writes:  "Ich  kann  mich  iiber  die  Siege  meiner 
liebsten  Ueberzeugungen  nicht  recht  freuen,  da  sie  mir  gar  zu  viel  gekostet  haben. 
Dassclbe  mag  bei  manchem  ehrlichen  Manne  der  Fall  sein,  und  es  tragt  viel  bei  zu 
der  grossen  dusteren  Verstimmung  der  Gegenwart."  (Brief  vom  21  April,  1851,  an 
Gustav  Kolb;  Werke,  Karpeles  ed.     Vol.  IX,  p.  378.) 

-"Confession  d'un  enfant  du  siecle."  CEuvres  compl.  Paris,  1888  (Charpen- 
tier).     Vol.  VIII,  p.  24. 


CHAPTER  II 

Holderlin 

A  case  such  as  that  of  HolderHn,  subject  as  he  was  from  the 
time  of  his  boyhood  to  melancholy,  and  ending  in  hopeless  in- 
sanity, at  once  suggests  the  question  of  heredity.  Little  or 
nothing  is  known  concerning  his  remote  ancestors.  His  great- 
grandfather had  been  administrator  of  a  convent  at  Grossbott- 
war,  and  died  of  dropsy  of  the  chest  at  the  age  of  forty-seven. 
His  grandfather  had  held  a  similar  position  as  "Klosterhof- 
meister  und  geistlicher  Verwalter"  at  Lauffen,  to  which  his 
son,  the  poet's  father,  succeeded.  An  apoplectic  stroke  ended 
his  life  at  the  early  age  of  thirty-six.  In  regard  to  Holderlin's 
maternal  ancestors,  our  information  is  even  more  scant,  though 
we  know  that  both  his  grandmother  and  his  mother  lived  to  a 
ripe  old  age.  From  the  poet's  references  to  them  we  judge 
them  to  have  been  entirely  normal  types  of  intelligent,  lovable 
women,  gifted  with  a  great  deal  of  good  practical  sense.  The 
only  striking  thing  is  the  premature  death  of  Holderlin's  great- 
grandfather and  father.  But  in  view  of  the  nature  of  their 
stations  in  life,  in  which  they  may  fairly  be  supposed  to  have 
led  more  than  ordinarily  sober  and  well-ordered  lives,  there 
seems  to  be  no  ground  whatever  for  assuming  that  Holderlin's 
Weltschmerz  owed  its  inception  in  any  degree  to  hereditary 
tendencies,  notwithstanding  Hermann  Fischer's  opinion  to  the 
contrary.^  There  is  no  sufificient  reason  to  assume  "erbliche 
Belastung,"  and  there  are  other  sufficient  causes  without  merely 
guessing  at  such  a  possibility. 

But  while  there  are  no  sufficient  historical  grounds  for  the 
supposition  that  he  brought  the  germ  of  his  subsequent  mental 
disease  with  him  in  his  birth,  we  cannot  fail  to  observe,  even  in 

^  Am.  f.  d.  Alt.,  vol.  22,  p.  212-218. 


10 

the  child,  certain  natural  traits,  which,  being  allowed  to  develop 
unchecked,  must  of  necessity  hasten  and  intensify  the  gloom 
which  hung  over  his  life.  To  his  deep  thoughtfulness  was 
added  an  abnormal  sensitiveness  to  all  external  influences. 
Like  the  delicate  anemone,  he  recoiled  and  withdrew  within 
himself  when  touched  by  the  rougher  material  things  of  life.^ 
He  himself  poetically  describes  his  absentmindedness  when  a 
bov,  and  calls  himself  "ein  Traumer" ;  and  a  dreamer  he 
remained  all  his  life.  It  seems  to  have  been  this  which  first 
brought  him  into  discord  with  the  world : 

Oft  sollt'  ich  stracks  in  meine  Schule  wandern, 
Doch  ehe  sich  der  Traumer  es  versah, 
So  hatt'  er  in  den  Garten  sich  verirrt, 
Und  sass  behaglich  unter  den  Oliven, 
Und  baute  Flotten,  schifift'  ins  hohe  Meer. 

Dies  kostete  mich  tausend  kleine  Leiden, 
Verzeihlich  war  es  immer,  wenn  mich  oft 
Die  Kliigeren,  mit  herzlichem  Gelachter 
Aus  meiner  seligen  Ekstase  schreckten, 
Doch  unaussprechlich  wehe  that  es  mir." 

If  ever  a  boy  needed  a  strong  fatherly  hand  to  guide  him,  to 
teach  him  self-reliance  and  practical  sense,  it  was  this  dreamy, 
tender-spirited  child. ^  The  love  and  sympathy  which  his 
mother  bestowed  upon  him  was  not  calculated  to  fit  him  for 
the  rugged  experiences  of  life,  and  while  probably  natural  and 
pardonable,  it  was  nevertheless  extremely  unfortunate  that  the 
boy  was  unconsciously  encouraged  to  be  and  to  remain  a  "Mut- 
tersohnchen."  But  even  with  his  pecuHar  trend  of  disposition, 
the  result  might  not  have  been  an  unhappy  one,  had  the  course 
of  his  life  not  brought  him  more  than  an  ordinary  share  of  mis- 
fortune.    This  overtook  him  early  in  life,  for  when  but  two 

'  In  a  letter  to  his  mother  he  writes:  "Freilich  ist's  mir  auch  angeboren,  dass 
ich  alles  schwerer  zu  Herzen  nehme."  ("Friedrich  Holderlins  Leben,  in  Briefen 
von  und  an  Holderlin,  von  Carl  C.  T.  Litzmann,"  Berlin,  1890,  p.  27.  Hereafter 
quoted  as  "Brief e."). 

^  "Holderlins  gesammelte  Dichtungen,  heravisgegeben  von  B.  Litzmann,"  Stutt- 
gart, Cotta  (hereafter  quoted  as  "Werke").     Vol.  II,  p.  9. 

'It  is  a  reminiscence  of  Holderlin's  boyhood  which  finds  expression  in  the 
words  of  Hyperion:  "Ich  war  aufgewachsen,  wie  eine  Rebe  ohne  Stab,  und  die 
wilden  Ranken  breiteten  richtungslos  iiber  dem  Boden  sich  aus."     Werke,  Vol.   II, 

p.   T2. 


11 

years  of  age  his  father  died.  His  widowed  mother  now  Hved 
for  a  few  years  in  complete  retirement  with  her  two  children — 
the  poet's  sister  Henrietta  having  been  born  just  a  few  weeks 
after  his  father's  demise.  But  it  was  not  long  before  death 
again  entered  the  household  and  robbed  it  of  Holderlin's  aunt, 
his  deceased  father's  sister,  who  was  herself  a  widow  and  the 
faithful  companion  of  the  poet's  mother.  When  the  latter 
found  herself  again  alone  with  her  two  little  ones,  whose  care 
was  weighing  heavily  upon  her,  she  consented  to  become  the 
wife  of  her  late  husband's  friend,  Kammerrat  Gock,  and  accom- 
panied him  to  his  home  in  the  little  town  of  Niirtingen  on  the 
Neckar.  But  this  re-established  marital  happiness  was  to  be  of 
brief  duration,  for  in  1779  her  second  husband  died,  and  the 
mother  was  now  left  with  four  little  children  to  care  and  pro- 
vide for. 

The  frequency  with  which  death  visited  the  family  during 
his  childhood  and  youth,  familiarized  him  at  an  early  age  with 
scenes  of  sorrow  and  grief.  No  doubt  he  was  too  young  when 
his  father  died  to  comprehend  the  calamity  that  had  come  upon 
the  household,  but  it  was  not  many  months  before  he  knew  the 
meaning  of  his  mother's  tears,  not  only  for  his  father,  but  also 
for  his  sister,  who  died  in  her  infancy.  Referring  to  his 
father's  death,  he  writes  in  one  of  his  early  poems,  '"Einst 
und  Jetzt"  ■} 

Einst  schlugst  du  mir  so  ruhig,  emportes  Herz! 

Einst  in  des  Vaters  Schoosse,  des  liebenden 
Geliebten  Vaters, — aber  der  Wiirger  kam, 
Wir  weinten,  flehten,  doch  der  Wiirger 
Schnellte  den  Pfeil,  und  es  sank  die  Stiitze. 

At  his  tenderest  and  most  impressionable  age,  the  boy  was  thus 
made  sadly  aware  of  the  fleetingness  of  human  life  and  the 
pains  of  bereavement.  We  cannot  wonder  then  at  finding  these 
impressions  reflected  in  his  most  juvenile  poetic  attempts.  His 
poem  "Das  menschliche  Leben,"  written  at  the  age  of  fifteen, 
begins : 

Menschen,  Alenschen!  was  ist  euer  Leben, 

1  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  86. 


12 

Eure  Welt,  die  thranenvolle  Welt! 
Dieser  Schauplatz,  kann  er  Freude  geben 
Wo  sich  Trauern  nicht  dazu  gesellt?^ 

But  a  time  of  still  greater  unhappiness  was  in  store  for  him 
when  he  left  his  home  at  the  age  of  fourteen  to  enter  the  con- 
vent school  at  Denkendorf,  where  he  began  his  preparation  for 
a  theological  course.  A  more  direct  antithesis  to  all  that  his 
body  and  soul  yearned  for  and  needed  for  their  proper  develop- 
ment could  scarcely  have  been  devised  than  that  which  existed 
in  the  chilling  atmosphere  and  rigorous  discipline  of  the  mon- 
astery. He  had  not  even  an  incentive  to  endure  hardships  for 
the  sake  of  what  lay  beyond,  for  it  was  merely  in  passive  sub- 
mission to  his  mother's  wish  that  he  had  decided  to  enter  holy 
orders.  And  now,  clad  in  a  sombre  monkish  gown,  deprived 
of  all  freedom  of  thought  or  movement  and  forced  into  com- 
panionship with  twenty-five  or  thirty  fellows  of  his  own  age, 
who  nearly  all  misunderstood  him,  Holderlin  felt  himself 
wretched  indeed.  "War'  ich  doch  ewig  feme  von  diesen 
Mauern  des  Elends !"  he  writes  in  a  poem  at  Maulbronn  in 
1787,^  There  was  for  him  but  one  way  of  escape.  It  was  to 
isolate  himself  as  much  as  possible  from  the  world  of  harsh 
reality  about  him,  to  be  alone,  and  there  in  his  solitude  to  con- 
struct for  himself  an  ideal  world  of  fancy,  a  poetic  dreamland. 
This  mental  habit  not  only  remained  with  him  as  he  grew  into 
manhood,  it  may  be  said  to  have  been  through  life  one  of  his 
most  distinguishing  characteristics.  It  would  be  impossible 
to  make  room  here  for  all  the  passages  in  his  poems  and  letters 
of  this  period,  which  reflect  his  love  of  solitude  and  his  habit 
of  retreating  into  a  world  of  his  own  imagining.  His  letters 
to  his  friend  Nast  almost  invariably  contain  some  expression 
of  his  heart-ache.  "Bilfinger  ist  wohl  mein  Freund,  aber  es 
geht  ihm  zu  glucklich,  als  dass  er  sich  nach  mir  umsehen 
mochte.  Du  wirst  mich  schon  verstehen — er  ist  immer  lustig, 
ich  hange  immer  den  Kopf."^  xA.nother  letter  begins  :  "Wieder 
eine  Stunde  wegphantasiert ! — dass  es  doch  so  schlechte 
Menschen  giebt,  unter  meinen  Cameraden  so  elende  Kerls — 

1  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  36. 

^  "Auf  einer  Heide  geschrieben,"  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  44. 

*  Briefe,  p.  27. 


13 

wann  mich  die  Freundschaft  nicht  zuweilen  wieder  gut  machte, 
so  hatt'  ich  mich  manchmal  schon  lieber  an  jeden  andern  Ort 
gewiinscht,  als  unter  Menschengesellschaft. — Wann  ich  nur 
auch  einmal  etwas  recht  Lustiges  schreiben  konnte !  Nur 
Gedult !  's  wird  konimen — hoff'  ich,  oder — oder  hab'  ich  dann 
nicht  genug  getragen?  Erfuhr  ich  nicht  schon  als  Bube,  was 
den  Mann  seufzen  machen  wurde  ?  und  als  Jiingling,  geht's  da 
besser? — Du  lieber  Gott!  bin  ich's  denn  allein?  jeder  andre 
gliicklicher  als  ich?  Und  was  hab'  ich  dann  gethan?"^  There 
is  a  world  of  pathos  in  this  helpless  cry  of  pain,  with  its  sugges- 
tion of  retributive  fate.  A  poem  of  1788,  "Die  Stille,"  written 
at  Maulbronn,  epitomizes  almost  everything  that  we  have  thus 
far  noted  as  to  Holderlin's  nature.  He  goes  back  in  fancy  to 
the  days  of  his  childhood,  describing  his  lonely  rambles,  from 
which  he  would  return  in  the  moonlight,  unmindful  of  his  late- 
ness for  the  evening  meal,  at  which  he  would  hastily  eat  of  that 
which  the  others  had  left : 

Schlich  mich,  wenn  ich  satt  gegessen, 
Weg  von  meinem  lustigen  Geschwisterpaar. 

O!  in  meines  kleinen  Stubchens  Stille 

War  mir  dann  so  iiber  alles  wohl, 

Wie  im  Tempel  war  mir's  in  der  Nachte  Hiille, 

Wann  so  einsam  von  dem  Turm  die  Glocke  scholl. 

Als  ich  weggerissen  von  den  Meinen 

Aus  dem  lieben  elterlichen  Haus 

Unter  Fremden  irrte,  wo  ich  nimmer  weinen 

Durfte,  in  das  bunte  Weltgewirr  hinaus, 

O  wie  pflegtest  du  den  armen  Jungen, 

Teure,  so  mit  Mutterzartlichkeit, 

Wann  er  sich  im  Weltgewirre  miid  gerungen, 

In  der  lieben,  wehmutsvollen  Einsamkeit." 

This  love  of  solitude  is  carried  to  the  extreme  in  his  contem- 
plation of  a  hermit's  life.  In  a  letter  to  Nast  he  says :  "Heute 
ging  ich  so  vor  mich  hin,  da  fiel  mir  ein,  ich  wolle  nach  vollen- 
deten  Universitats  Jahren  Einsiedler  werden — und  der  Gedanke 

'  Briefe,  p.  29. 

2  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  53  f. 


14 

gefiel  mir  so  wohl,  eine  ganze  Stunde,  glaub'  ich,  war  ich  in 
meiner  Fantasie  Einsicdler."^  And  although  he  never  became 
a  hermit,  this  is  the  final  disposition  which  he  makes  of  himself 
in  his  "Hyperion." 

These  habits  of  thought  and  feeling,  formed  in  boyhood, 
could  lead  to  only  one  result.  He  became  less  and  less  quali- 
fied to  comprehend  and  to  grapple  with  the  practical  problems 
and  difficulties  of  life,  and  entered  young  manhood  and  the 
struggle  for  existence  at  a  tremendous  disadvantage. 

Another  trait  of  his  character  which  served  to  intensify  his 
subsequent  disappointments,  was  the  strong  ambition  which 
early  filled  his  soul.  He  aspired  to  high  achievements  in  his 
chosen  field  of  art.  In  a  letter  to  Louise  Nast,  written  prob- 
ably about  the  beginning  of  1790,  he  makes  the  confession: 
"Der  uniiberwindliche  Triibsinn  in  mir  ist  wohl  nicht  ganz, 
doch  meist — unbefriedigter  Ehrgeiz."^  The  mere  lad  of 
seventeen  had  scarcely  learned  to  admire  Klopstock,  when  he 
speaks  of  his  own  "kampfendes  Streben  nach  Klopstocks- 
grosse,"  and  exclaims :  "Hinan  den  herrlichen  Ehrenpfad ! 
Hiiian  !  ini  gliihenden  kiihnen  Traum,  sie  zu  erreichen  !"^  It  is 
remarkable  to  note  how  this  fancy  of  a  dream-life  becomes 
fixed  in  Holderlin's  mind  and  reappears  in  almost  every  poem. 
Closely  allied  to  this  idea  is  that  of  a  "gliickliche  Trunkenheit," 
and  expressions  like  '"wie  ein  Gottertraum  das  Alter  schwand," 
"liebetrunken,"  "Wie  ein  Traum  entfliehen  Ewigkeiten,"  "sie- 
gestrunken,"  "siisse,  kiihne  Trunkenheit,"  "trunken  dammert 
die  Seele  mir,"  can  be  found  on  almost  every  page  of  his  shorter 
poems.  Hyperion  expresses  himself  on  one  occasion  in  the 
words :  "O  ein  Gott  ist  der  Mensch,  wenn  er  traumt,  ein 
Bettler,  wenn  er  nachdenkt,  und  wenn  die  Begeisterung  hin  ist, 
steht  er  da,  wie  ein  missrathener  Sohn,  den  der  Vater  aus  dem 
Hause  stiess,  und  betrachtet  die  armlichen  Pfennige,  die  ihm 
das  ^litleid  auf  den  Weg  gab,"*  which  further  illustrates  the 
extravagant  idealism  by  which  he  allowed  himself  to  be  carried 
away,  and  the  etherial  and  thoroughly  unpractical  trend  of  his 

*  Briefe,  p.  36. 

-  Briefe,  p.   120. 

*  "Mein  Vorsatz,"  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  44. 

*  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  69. 


15 

mind.  The  flights  of  fancy  of  which  HolderHn  is  capable  are 
well  illustrated  by  another  passage  in  "Hyperion."  Referring 
to  Hyperion's  conversation  with  Alabanda,  he  says :  "Ich  war 
hingerissen  von  unendlichen  Hoflfnungen,  Gotterkrafte  trugen 
wie  ein  Wolkchen  mich  fort."^  These  facts  have  a  direct  bear- 
ing upon  Holderlin's  Weltschmerz,  inasmuch  as  it  was  just 
this  unequal  and  unsuccessful  struggle  of  the  idealist  with  the 
stern  realities  of  life  that  brought  about  the  catastrophe  which 
wrought  his  ruin. 

And  just  as  his  ideals  are  vague  and  abstract,  so  too  are  the 
expressions  of  his  Weltschmerz.  It  needs  no  concrete  idea  to 
arouse  his  enthusiasm  to  its  highest  pitch.  Thus  Hyperion  ex- 
claims: "Der  Gott  in  uns,  dem  die  Unendlichkeit  zur  Bahn 
sich  offnet,  soil  stehen  und  barren,  bis  der  Wurm  ihm  aus  dem 
Wege  geht  ?  Nein !  nein !  man  f  ragt  nicht,  ob  ihr  woUt !  ihr 
wollt  ja  nie — ihr  Knechte  und  Barbaren !  Euch  will  man  auch 
nicht  bessern,  denn  es  ist  umsonst !  Man  will  nur  dafiir 
sorgen,  dass  ihr  dem  Siegeslauf  der  Menschheit  aus  dem  Wege 
geht !"-  It  is  in  the  form  of  lofty  generalities  such  as  these, 
and  seldom  with  reference  to  practical  details,  that  Holderlin's 
longings  find  expression. 

Entirely  consistent  with  this  idealism  is  the  nature  of  his 
love,  ardent,  but  etherial,  "iibersinnlich."  This  is  reflected 
also  in  his  lyrics,  which  are  statuesque  and  beautiful,  but  lack- 
ing in  passion  and  sensuous  charm.  Holderlin's  earliest  love- 
affair,  that  with  Louise  Nast,  is  important  for  his  Weltschmerz 
only  in  its  bearing  upon  the  development  of  his  general  char- 
acter. This  influence  was  a  twofold  one :  in  the  first  place  his 
sweetheart  was  herself  inclined  to  a  sort  of  visionary  mysticism, 
and  therefore  had  an  unwholesome  influence  upon  the  youth, 
who  had  already  been  carried  too  far  in  that  direction.  She 
too  was  a  lover  of  solitude  and  wrote  her  letters  to  him  in  the 
stillness  of  the  night,  when  all  others  were  asleep.  There  can 
be  no  doubt  that  she  had  at  least  some  share  in  determining  his 
mental  activity,  especially  his  reading.  In  one  of  his  earliest 
letters  to  her  he  writes :     "Weil  Du  den  Don  Carlos  liest.  will 

^  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  90. 
^Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  86. 


16 

ich  ihn  auch  lesen."^  It  was  during  this  time  too  that  that  he 
became  so  ardent  an  admirer  of  Schubart  and  Ossian.  "Da 
leg'  ich  meinen  Ossian  weg  und  komme  zu  Dir,"  he  writes  in 
1788  to  his  friend  Nast.  "Ich  habe  meine  Seele  geweidet  an 
den  Helden  des  Barden,  habe  mit  ihm  getrauert,  wann  er 
trauert  iiber  sterbende  Madchen."^  There  is  not  a  sensuous 
note  in  all  Holderlin's  poems  or  letters  to  Louise.  Typical  are 
the  lines  which  he  addresses  to  her  on  his  departure  from  Maul- 
bronn : 

Lass  sie  drohen,  die  Stiirme,  die  Leiden, 

Lass  trennen — der  Trennung  Jahre 

Sie  trennen  uns  nicht! 

Sie  trennen  uns  nicht! 

Denn  mein  bist  du!     Und  iiber  das  Grab  hinaus 

Soil  sie  dauren,  die  unzertrennbare   Liebe. 

O!  wenn's  einst  da  ist 

Das  grosse  selige  Jenseits, 

Wo  die  Krone  dem  leidenden  Pilger, 

Die  Palme  dem  Sieger  blinkt, 

Dann  Freundin — lohnet  auch  Freundschaft — 

Auch  Freundschaft  der  Ewige.  ^ 

The  second  bearing  which  his  relations  to  Louise  have  upon 

his  Weltschmerz  lies  in  the  fact  that  his  love  ended  in  disap- 
pointment. This  is  true  not  only  of  this  particular  episode,  not 
only  of  all  his  love-affairs,  but  it  may  even  be  said  that  disap- 
pointment was  the  fate  to  which  he  found  himself  doomed  in 
all  his  aspirations.  And  in  the  persistency  with  which  this 
evil  angel  pursued  his  footsteps  through  life  may  be  found 
one  of  the  chief  causes  of  the  early  collapse  of  his  faculties. 
What  David  Miiller*  and  Hermann  Fischer^  have  said  in  their 
essays  in  regard  to  this  point — that  Holderlin  did  not  become 
insane  because  his  life  was  a  succession  of  unsatisfactory  situa- 
tions and  painful  disappointments,  but  because  he  had  not  the 
strength  to  work  himself  out  of  these  situations  into  more 
favorable  ones — states  only  half  the  case.     True,  a  stronger 

^  Briefe,  p.  49. 

*  Briefe,  p.  50. 

3  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  74. 

*  "Friedrich  Holderlin,  Eine  Studie,"  Preuss.  Jahrb.,  1866,  p.  548-568. 
^  Am.  f.  d.  Altertum,  Vol.  22,  p.  212-218. 


17 

mental  organization  might  have  overcome  these  or  even  greater 
difficulties ;  Schiller,  Herder,  Fichte  are  examples ;  but  not 
all  of  Holderlin's  failures  and  disappointments  were  the  result 
of  his  weakness,  and  so  while  it  is  right  to  state  that  a  stronger 
and  more  robust  nature  would  have  conquered  in  the  fight,  it 
is  also  fair  to  say  that  Holderlin  would  have  had  a  good 
chance  of  winning,  had  fortune  been  more  kind.  For  this 
reason  these  external  influences  must  be  reckoned  with  as  an 
important  cause  of  his  Weltschmerz  and  subsequently  of  his 
insanity. 

This  suggests  an  interesting  point  of  comparison — if  I  may 
be  permitted  to  anticipate  somewhat — with  Lenau,  the  second 
type  selected.  Holderlin  earnestly  pursued  happiness  and  con- 
tentment, but  it  eluded  him  at  every  step.  Lenau  on  the  con- 
trary reached  a  point  in  his  Weltschmerz  where  he  refused  to 
see  anything  in  life  but  pain,  wilfully  thrusting  from  him  even 
such  happiness  as  came  within  his  reach. 

We  may  postpone  any  detailed  reference  to  Holderlin's  rela- 
tions with  Susette  Gontard,  which  were  vastly  more  important 
in  their  influence  upon  the  poet's  character  and  Weltschmerz, 
until  we  come  to  the  discussion  of  his  "Hyperion,"  of  which 
Susette,  under  the  pseudonym  of  Diotima,  forms  one  of  the 
central  figures. 

To  speak  of  all  the  disappointments  which  fell  to  Holder- 
lin's lot  would  practically  require  the  writing  of  his  biography 
from  the  time  of  his  graduation  from  Tiibingen  to  his  return 
from  Bordeaux,  almost  the  entire  period  of  his  sane  manhood. 
Unsuccessful  in  his  first  position  as  a  tutor,  and  unable,  after 
having  abandoned  this,  to  provide  even  a  meagre  living  for 
himself  with  his  pen,  his  migration  to  Frankfort  to  the  house 
of  the  merchant  Gontard  at  last  gave  him  a  hope  of  better 
things,  but  a  hope  which  soon  proved  vain.  Following  close 
upon  these  disappointments  was  his  failure  to  carry  out  a 
project  which  he  had  long  cherished,  of  establishing  a  literary 
journal ;  then  came  his  dismissal  from  a  situation  which  he  had 
just  entered  upon  in  Switzerland.  On  his  return  he  wrote  to 
Schiller  for  help  and  advice,  and  his  failure  to  receive  a  reply 
grieved  him  deeply.     We  can  only  surmise  that  it  was  a  cruel 


18 

disappointment,  finally,  which  caused  his  sudden  departure 
from  Bordeaux,  and  brought  him  back  a  mental  wreck  to  his 
mother's  home.  Even  as  early  as  1788  Holderlin  complains 
bitterly  in  the  poem  "Der  Lorbeer,"  in  which  he  eulogizes  the 
poets  Klopstock  and  Young  and  expresses  his  own  ambition 
to  aspire  to  their  greatness : 

Schon  so  manche  Friichte  schoner  Keime 
Logen  grausam  mir  ins  Angesicht.' 

As  the  years  passed,  this  feeling  of  disappointment  and  disil- 
lusion became  more  and  more  intense  and  bitter.  A  stanza 
from  one  of  his  more  mature  poems  (1795)  "An  die  Natur," 
will  serve  to  illustrate  the  sentiment  which  pervades  almost  all 
his  writings : 

Tot  ist  nun,  die  mich  erzog  und  stillte, 
Tot  ist  nun  die  jugendliche  Welt, 
Diese  Brust,  die  einst  ein  Himmel  fiillte. 
Tot  und  diirftig  wie  ein  Stoppelfeld; 
Ach  es  singt  der  Friihling  meinen  Sorgen 
Noch,  wie  einst,  ein  freundlich  trostend  Lied, 
Aber  hin  ist  meines  Lebens  Morgen, 
Meines  Herzens  Friihling  ist  verbliiht.'' 

In  close  causal  connection  w'ith  Holderlin's  Weltschmerz  is 
his  belief  that  his  life  is  ruled  by  an  inexorable  fate  whose  play- 
thing he  is.  "Wenn  hinfort  mich  das  Schicksal  ergreift,  und 
von  einem  Abgrund  in  den  andern  mich  wirft,  und  alle  Krafte 
in  mir  ertrankt  und  alle  Gedanken,"  Hyperion  exclaims.^  He 
goes  even  further,  and  conceives  the  idea  of  a  sacrifice  to  Fate. 
Thus  he  makes  Alabanda  say  near  the  close  of  "Hyperion :" 
"Ach !  weil  kein  Gliick  ist  ohne  Opfer,  nimm  als  Opfer  mich,  o 
Schicksal  an,  und  lass  die  Liebenden  in  ihrer  Freude."*  Wil- 
helm  Scherer  calls  attention  to  Gervinus'  remark  that  new  intel- 
lectual tendencies  which  call  for  unaccustomed  and  unusual 
mental  effort  often  prove  disastrous  to  single  individuals,  and 
says :  "Holderlin  war  also  ein  Opfer  der  Erneuerung  des 
deutschen  Lebens — seltsam,  wie  der  Gedanke  des  Opfers  als 

^  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  75. 

*  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  146. 

'  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  107. 

«  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  188. 


19 

ein  hoher  unci  herrlicher  ihn  in  alien  seinen  Gedichten  viel  be- 
schaftigt  hat."^  But  the  poet  does  not  apply  this  fatalism  only 
to  himself,  to  the  individual ;  he  widens  its  influence  to  human- 
ity in  general.  "Wir  sprechen  von  unserm  Herzen,  unsern 
Planen,  als  waren  sie  unser,"  says  Hyperion,  "und  es  ist  doch 
eine  fremde  Gewalt,  die  uns  herumwirft  und  ins  Grab  legt, 
wie  es  ihr  gefallt,  und  von  der  wir  nicht  wissen,  von  wannen  sie 
kommt,  noch  wohin  sie  geht :"-  Perhaps  nowhere  better  than 
in  Hyperion's  "Schicksalslied'  does  he  give  poetic  expression  to 
this  thought.     Omitting  the  first  stanza  it  reads  thus : 

Schicksallos  wie  der  schlafende 
Saugling  atmen  die  Himmlischen; 
Keusch  bewahrt 

In  bescheidener  Knospe, 
Bliihet  ewig 
Ihnen  der  Geist, 

Und  die  seligen  Augen 
Blicken  in  stiller 
Ewiger  Klarheit. 

Doch  uns  ist  gegeben, 
Auf  keiner  Statte  zu  ruhn, 
Es  schwinden,  es  fallen 
Die  leidenden  JMenschen 
Blindlings  von  einer 
Stunde  zur  andern, 

Wie  Wasser  von  Klippe 
Zu  Klippe  geworfen, 

Jahrlang  ins  Ungewisse  hinab.* 

The  fundamental  difference  between  Holderlin's  "Anschauung" 
and  Goethe's  is  at  once  apparent  when  we  recall  the  "Lied  der 
Parzen"  from  "Iphigenie."  Holderlin  does  not  bring  the 
blessed  Genii  into  any  relation  with  mortals,  but  merely  con- 
trasts their  free  and  blissful  existence,  emphasizing  their  im- 
munity from  Fate,  to  which  suffering  humanity  is  subject.  But 
this  humanity  is  represented  by  Holderlin  characteristically  as 
helpless,  passive — "schwinden,"  "fallen,"  "blindlings  von  einer 
Stunde  zur  andern."     Whereas  the  opening  lines  of  Goethe's 

^  "Vortrage  und  Aufsatze,"  1874,  Fried.  Holderlin,  p.  354. 
2Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  96. 
3  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.   189. 


20 

"Parzen"  strike  the  keynote  of  conflict  between  the  gods  and 
men  : 

Es  fiirchte  die  Gotter 

Das  Menschengeschlecht! 

Sie  halten  die  Herrschaft 

In  ewigen  Handen 

Und  konnen  sie  brauchen 

Wie's  ihnen  gefallt. 

Der  fiirchte  sie  doppelt, 

Den  je  sie  erheben! 

And  those  who  come  to  grief  at  the  hands  of  the  gods,  are  not 
weak  passive  creatures,  but  heaven-scaling  Titans.  This  points 
to  the  antipodal  difference  between  the  characters  of  these  two 
poets,  and  explains  in  part  why  Goethe  did  not  succumb  to  the 
sickly  sentimentalism  of  which  he  rid  himself  in  "Werther." 
The  difference  between  yielding  and  striving  resulted  in  the 
difference  between  an  acute  case  of  Weltschmerz  in  the  one  and 
a  healthy  physical  and  intellectual  manhood  in  the  other. 

Thus  far  it  has  been  almost  entirely  the  personal  aspect  of 
Holderlin's  Weltschmerz  and  its  causes  that  has  come  under 
our  notice.  And  since  he  was  a  lyric  poet,  it  is  perhaps  natural 
that  the  sorrows  which  concerned  him  personally  should  find 
most  frequent  expression  in  his  verse.  But  notwithstanding 
the  fact  that  this  personal  element  is  very  prominent  in  Holder- 
lin's writings,  Scherer's  judgment  is  correct  wdien  he  states : 
"Die  Grundstimmung  war  eine  tiefe  Verbitterung  gegen  die 
Versunkenheit  des  Vaterlands."^  The  reason  is  not  far  to 
seek,  especially  when  we  consider  the  impossible  demands  of 
the  poet's  extravagant  idealism.  The  conditions  in  Germany 
which  had  called  forth  the  terrible  arraignment  of  petty  despot- 
ism, crushing  militarism,  and  political  rottenness  generally,  in 
the  works  of  Lenz,  Klinger  and  Schubart,  had  not  abated. 
Schubart  was  one  of  Hdlderlin's  earliest  favorites,  so  that  the 
latter  was  doubtless  in  this  way  imbued  with  sentiments  which 
could  only  grow  stronger  under  the  influence  of  his  more  ma- 
ture observations  and  experiences.  Even  in  his  eighteenth 
year,  in  a  poem  "An  die  Demut,"-  he  gives  expression  in  strong 

1  Cf.  op.  cit.,  p.  352. 
='Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  51- 


21 

terms  to  his  patriotic  feelings,  in  which  his  disgust  with  his 
faint-hearted,  servile  compatriots  and  his  defiance  of  "Fiirsten- 
laune"  and  "Despotenblut"  are  plainly  evident.  So  too  in 
"Mannerjubel,"  1788: 

Es  glimmt  in  uns  ein  Funke  der  Gottlichen! 

Und  diesen  Funken  soil  aus  der  Mannerbrust 

Der  Holle  IMacht  uns  nicht  entreissen! 

Hort  es,  Despotengerichte,  hort  es  P 

Perhaps  nowhere  outside  of  his  own  Wiirttemberg  could  he 
have  been  more  unfavorably  situated  in  this  respect.  Under 
Karl  Eugen  (1744-1793)  the  country  sank  into  a  deplorable 
condition.  Regardless  of  the  rights  of  individuals  and  com- 
munities alike,  he  sought  in  the  early  part  of  his  reign  to  replen- 
ish his  depleted  purse  by  the  most  shameless  measures,  in  order 
that  he  might  surround  himself  with  luxury  and  indulge  his 
autocratic  proclivities.  Among  his  most  reprehensible  viola- 
tions of  constitutional  rights,  were  his  bartering  of  privileges 
and  offices  and  the  selling  of  troops.  These  things  Holderlin 
attacks  in  one  of  his  youthful  poems  "Die  Ehrsucht"  (1788)  : 

Um  wie  Konige  zu  prahlen,  schanden 

Kleine  Wiitriche  ihr  armes  Land; 

Und  um  feile  Ordensbander  wenden 

Rate  sich  das  Ruder  aus  der  Hand.^ 

Another  act  of  gross  injustice  which  this  petty  tyrant  perpe- 
trated, and  which  Holderlin  must  have  felt  very  painfully,  was 
the  incarceration  of  the  poet's  countryman  Schubart  from  1777 
to  1787  in  the  Hohenasperg.  But  not  only  from  within  came 
tyrannous  oppression.  Following  upon  the  coalition  against 
France  after  the  Revolution,  Wiirttemberg  became  the  scene  of 
bloody  conflicts  and  the  ravages  of  war.  Under  the  regime  of 
Friedrich  Eugen  (1795-97)  the  French  gained  such  a  foothold 
in  Wiirttemberg  that  the  country  had  to  pay  a  contribution  of 
four  million  gulden  to  get  rid  of  them.  These  were  the  condi- 
tions under  which  Holderlin  grew  up  into  young  manhood. 
But  deeper  than  in  the  mere  existence  of  these  conditions 
themselves  lay  the  cause  of  the  poet's  most  abject  humiliation 
and  grief.     It  was  the  stoic  indifference,  the  servile  submission 

*  Werke,  \'^ol.  I,  p.   50. 
2  Werke,  Vol.  I.  p.  49. 


22 

with  which  lie  charged  his  compatriots,  that  called  forth  his  bit- 
terest invectives  upon  their  insensible  heads.  His  own  words 
will  serve  best  to  show  the  intensity  of  his  feelings.  In  1788 
he  writes,  in  the  poem  "Am  Tage  der  Freundschaftsfeier :" 

Da  sail  er  (der  Schwarmer)  all  die  Schande 

Der  weichlichen  Teutonssohne, 

Und  fluchte  dem  verderblichen  Ausland 

Und  fluchte  den  verdorbenen  Affen  des  Auslands, 

Und  weinte  blutige  Thranen, 

Dass  er  vielleicht  noch  lange 

Verweilen  niiisse  unter  diesem  Geschlecht.^ 

Ten  years  later  he  treats  the  Germans  to  the  following  ignomin- 
ious comparison : 

Spottet  ja  nicht  des  Kinds,  wenn  es  mit  Peitsch'  und  Sporn 
Auf  dem  Rosse  von  Holz,  mutig  und  gross  sich  diinkt. 
Denn,  ihr  Deutschen,  auch  ihr  seid 
Thatenarm  und  gedankenvoll." 

With  his  friend  Sinclair,  who  was  sent  as  a  delegate,  he  at- 
tended the  congress  at  Rastatt  in  November,  1798,  and  here  he 
made  observations  which  no  doubt  resulted  in  the  bitter  char- 
acterization of  his  nation  in  the  closing  letters  of  Hyperion. 
This  convention,  whose  chief  object  was  the  compensation  of 
those  German  princes  who  had  been  dispossessed  by  the  ces- 
sions to  France  on  the  left  bank  of  the  Rhine,  afforded  a  spec- 
tacle so  humiliating  that  it  would  have  bowed  down  in  shame  a 
spirit  even  less  proud  and  sensitive  than  Holderlin's.  The 
French  emissaries  conducted  themselves  like  lords  of  Germany, 
while  the  German  princes  vied  with  each  other  in  acts  of  servil- 
ity and  submission  to  the  arrogant  Frenchmen.  And  it  was 
the  apathy  of  the  average  German,  as  Holderlin  conceived  it, 
toward  these  and  other  national  indignities,  that  caused  him  to 
put  such  bitter  words  of  contumely  into  the  mouth  of  Hy- 
perion: "Barbaren  von  Alters  her,  durch  Fleiss  und  Wis- 
senschaft  und  selbst  durch  Religion  barbarischer  geworden, 
tief  unfahig  jedes  gottlichen  Gefuhls— beleidigend  fiir  jede  gut 
geartete  Seele,  dumpf  und  harmonielos,  wie  die  Scherben  eines 
weggeworfenen  Gefasses— das,  mein  Bellarmin !  waren  meine 

»  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  66. 
nVcrke.  Vol.  I,  p.   165. 


23 

Troster."^  In  another  letter  Hyperion  explains  their  incapac- 
ity for  finer  feeling  and  appreciation  when  he  writes :  "Neide 
die  Leidensfreien  nicht,  die  Gotzen  von  Holz,  denen  nichts  man- 
gelt,  weil  ihre  Seek  so  arm  ist,  die  nichts  fragen  nach  Regen 
und  Sonnenschein,  weil  sie  nichts  haben,  was  der  Pflege  be- 
diirfte.  Ja,  ja,  es  ist  recht  sehr  leicht,  gliicklich,  ruhig  zu  sein 
mit  seichtem  Herzen  und  eingeschranktem  Geiste."-  Their 
work  he  characterizes  as  "Stiimperarbeit,"  and  their  virtues  as 
brilliant  evils  and  nothing  more.  There  is  nothing  sacred,  he 
claims,  that  has  not  been  desecrated  by  this  nation.  But  it  is 
chiefly  his  own  experience  which  he  recites,  when,  in  speaking 
of  the  sad  pHght  of  German  poets,  of  those  who  still  love  the 
beautiful,  he  says :  "Es  ist  auch  herzzerreissend,  wenn  man 
eure  Dichter,  eure  Kunstler  sieht — die  Guten,  sie  leben  in  der 
Welt,  wie  Fremdlinge  im  eigenen  Hause."^  Still  more  extrav- 
agantly does  the  poet  caricature  his  own  people  when  he  writes  : 
"Wenn  doch  einmal  diesen  Gottverlassnen  einer  sagte,  dass  bei 
ihnen  nur  so  unvollkommen  alles  ist,  weil  sie  nichts  Reines 
unverdorben,  nichts  Heiliges  unbetastet  lassen  mit  den  plumpen 
Handen — dass  bei  ihnen  eigentlich  das  Leben  schaal  und  sor- 
genschwer  ist,  weil  sie  den  Genius  verschmahen — und  darum 
fiirchten  sie  auch  den  Tod  so  sehr,  und  leiden  um  des  Austern- 
lebens  willen  alle  Schmach,  weil  Hohres  sie  nicht  kennen,  als 
ihr  Alachwerk,  das  sie  sich  gestoppelt."^ 

But  we  should  get  an  extremely  unjust  and  one-sided  idea  of 
Holderlin's  attitude  toward  his  country  from  these  quotations 
alone.  The  point  which  they  illustrate  is  his  growing  estrange- 
ment from  his  own  people,  which  in  the  very  nature  of  the  case 
must  have  had  an  important  bearing  upon  his  Weltschmerz. 
But  his  feelings  in  regard  to  Germany  and  the  Germans  were 
not  all  contempt.  In  many  of  his  poems  there  is  the  true 
patriotic  ring.  It  is  true,  we  can  nowhere  find  any  clear  po- 
litical program,  neither  could  we  expect  one  from  a  poet  who 
was  so  absorbed  in  his  own  feelings,  and  whose  ideals  soared  so 
high  above  the  sphere  of  practical  politics.     In  this  too  Hold- 

iWerke,  Vol.   II,  p.   198. 

^Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  97. 

^  Werke,  Vol.   II,  p.  200. 

*  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  200  f. 


24 

erlin  was  the  product  of  previous  influences.  With  all  their 
clamor  for  political  upheavals,  the  "Stiirmer  und  Dranger" 
never  arrived  at  any  serious  or  practical  plan  of  action.  Not- 
withstanding all  this,  the  word  Vaterland  was  always  an 
inspiration  to  Holderlin,  and  it  is  especially  gratifying  to  note 
that  the  calumny  which  he  heaps  upon  the  devoted  heads  of  the 
Germans  is  not  his  last  word  on  the  subject.  Nor  did  he  ever 
lose  sight  of  his  lofty  ideal  of  liberty  for  his  degraded  father- 
land or  cease  to  hope  for  its  realization.  In  this  strain  he  con- 
cludes the  "Hymne  an  die  Freiheit"  (1790)  with  a  splendid 
outburst  of  patriotic  enthusiasm  : 

Dann  am  siissen,  heisserrung'nen  Ziele, 
Wenn  der  Ernte  grosser  Tag  beginnt, 
Wenn  verodet  die  Tyrannenstiihle, 
Die  Tyrannenknechte  Moder  sind, 
Wenn  im  Heldenbunde  meiner  Briider 
Deutsches  Blut  und  deutsche  Liebe  gliiht, 
Dann,  O  Himmelstochter!  sing  ich  wieder, 
Singe  sterbend  dir  das  letzte  Lied.^ 

What  a  remarkable  change  is  noticeable  in  the  tone  which  the 
poet  assumes  toward  his  country  in  the  lines  "Gesang  des 
Deutschen,"  written  in  1799,  probably  after  the  completion  of 
his  "Hyperion" : 

O  heilig  Herz  der  Volker,  O  Vaterland! 
Allduldend  gleich  der  schweigenden  Muttererd' 
Und  allverkannt,  wenn  schon  aus  deiner 
Tiefe  die  Fremden  ihr  Bestes  haben. 

Du  Land  des  hohen,  ernsteren  Genius! 
Du  Land  der  Liebe!  bin  ich  der  Deine  schon, 
Oft  ziirnt'  ich  weinend,  dass  du  immer 
Blode  die  eigene  Seele  leugnest.^ 

How  much  the  reproach  has  been  softened,  and  with  what 
tender  regard  he  strives  to  mollify  his  former  bitterness !  To 
this  change  in  his  feelings,  his  sojourn  in  strange  places  and 
the  attendant  discouragements  and  disappointments  seem  to 
have  contributed  not  a  little,  for  in  the  poem  "Riickkehr  in  die 

^  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.   105. 
^^Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.   196. 


25 

Heimat,"  written  in  1800,  the  contempt  of  "Hyperion"  has  been 
replaced  by  compassion.  He  sees  himself  and  his  country 
linked  together  in  the  sacred  companionship  of  suffering,  con- 
sequently it  can  no  longer  be  the  object  of  his  scorn. 

Wie  lange  ist's,  O  wie  lange!  des  Kindes  Ruh' 
1st  hin,  vmd  hin  ist  Jiigend,  und  Lieb'  und  Gliick, 
Doch  du,  mein  Vaterland!  du  heilig 
Duldendes !  siehe,  du  bist  geblieben.^ 

But  the  fact  remains,  nevertheless,  that  Holderlin  from  his 
early  youth  felt  himself  a  stranger  in  his  own  land  and  among 
his  own  people.  Some  of  the  causes  of  this  circumstance  have 
already  been  discussed.  The  fact  itself  is  important  because 
it  establishes  the  connection  between  his  Weltschmerz  and  his 
most  noteworthy  characteristic  as  a  poet,  namely,  his  Hellenism. 
No  other  German  poet  has  allowed  himself  to  be  so  completely 
dominated  by  the  Greek  idea  as  did  Holderlin.  And  in  his 
case  it  may  properly  be  called  a  symptom  of  his  Weltschmerz, 
for  it  marks  his  flight  from  the  world  of  stern  reality  into  an 
imaginary  world  of  Greek  ideals.  An  imaginary  Greek  world, 
because  in  spite  of  his  Hellenic  enthusiasm  he  entertained  some 
of  the  most  un-Hellenic  ideas  and  feelings. 

That  the  poet  should  take  refuge  in  Greek  antiquity  is  not 
surprising,  when  we  consider  the  conditions  which  prevailed  at 
that  time  in  the  field  of  learning.  It  was  not  many  decades 
since  the  study  of  Latin  and  Roman  institutions  had  been  forced 
to  yield  preeminence  of  position  in  Germany  to  the  study  of 
Greek.  Furthermore,  his  own  Suabia  had  come  to  be  recog- 
nized as  a  leader  in  the  study  of  Greek  antiquity,  and  in  his  con- 
temporaries Schiller,  Hegel,  Schelling,  who  were  all  country- 
men and  acquaintances  of  his,  he  found  worthy  competitors  in 
this  branch  of  learning.  His  fondness  for  the  language  and 
literature  of  Greece  goes  back  to  his  early  school  days,  espe- 
cially at  Denkendorf  and  Maulbronn.  On  leaving  the  latter 
school,  he  had  the  reputation  among  his  fellow-students  of 
being  an  excellent  Hellenist,  according  to  the  report  of  Schwab, 
his  biographer.     It  was  while  there  that  Holderlin  as  a  boj 

1  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  214. 


26 

of  seventeen  first  made  use  of  the  Alcaic  measure  in  which  he 
subsequently  wrote  so  many  of  his  poems. 

A  full  discussion  of  the  technic  of  Holderlin's  poems  would 
have  so  remote  a  connection  with  the  main  topic  under  con- 
sideration that  its  introduction  here  would  be  entirely  out  of 
place.  It  will  suffice,  therefore,  merely  to  indicate  along  broad 
lines  the  extent  to  which  the  Greek  idea  took  and  held  posses- 
sion of  the  poet. 

Out  of  his  i68  shorter  poems,  126,  exactly  three-fourths,  are 
written  in  the  unrhymed  Greek  measures.^  Those  forms  which 
are  native  are  confined  almost  entirely  to  his  juvenile  and 
youthful  compositions,  and  after  1797  he  only  once  employs 
the  rhymed  stanza,  namely,  in  the  poem  "An  Landauer."-  As 
a  boy  of  sixteen,  he  wrote  verses  in  the  Alcaic  and  Asclepiadeian 
measures,^  and  soon  acquired  a  considerable  mastery  over  them. 
At  seventeen  he  composed  in  the  latter  form  his  poem  "An 
meine  Freundinnen :" 

In  der  Stille  der  Nacht  denket  an  euch  mein  Lied, 
Wo  mein  ewiger  Gram  jeglichen  Stundenschlag, 
Welcher  naher  mich  bringt  dem 
Trauten  Grabe,  mit  Dank  begrusst.^ 

While  not  exhibiting  the  finish  of  expression  and  musical  qual- 
ities of  his  more  mature  Alcaic  lyrics,  still  it  is  not  bad  poetry 
for  a  boy  of  seventeen,  and  the  reader  feels  what  the  boy  was 
not  slow  to  learn,  that  the  stately  movement  of  the  Greek 
stanzas  lends  an  added  dignity  to  the  expression  of  sorrow, 
which  was  to  constitute  so  large  a  part  of  his  poetic  activity. 
As  already  stated,  the  Alcaic  measure  was  of  all  the  Greek 
verse-forms  Holderlin's  favorite,  and  the  one  most  frequently 
and  successfully  employed  by  him.  He  is  very  fond  of  intro- 
ducing Germanic  alliteration  into  these  unrhymed  stanzas,  as 
the  following  example  will  illustrate : 

Und  wo  sind  Dichter,  denen  der  Gott  es  gab, 
Wie  unsern  Alten,  freundlich  und  fromm  zu  sein, 

1  Werke,  Vol.  I. 

'  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  234. 

'  "An  die  Nachtigall,"  "An  meinen  Bilfinger,"  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  42f. 

*  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  43. 


27 

Wo  Weise,  wie  die  unsern  sind,  die 
Kalten  und  Kiihnen,  die  unbestechbarn?^ 

The  Asclepiadeian  stanza  he  employs  much  less  frequently, 
the  Sapphic  only  once,  and  that  with  indifferent  success.  It 
was  the  ode,  dithyramb  and  hymn,  the  serious  lyric,  which 
Holderlin  selected  as  the  models  for  his  poetic  fashion.  In  this 
purpose  he  was  not  alone,  for  his  friend  Neuffer  writes  to  him 
in  1793,  with  an  enthusiasm  which  in  the  intensity  of  expression 
common  at  the  time,  seems  almost  like  an  inspiration:  "Die 
hohere  Ode  und  der  Hymnus,  zwei  in  unsern  Tagen,  und  viel- 
leicht  in  alien  Zeitaltern  am  meisten  vernachlassigte  Musen !  in 
ihre  Arme  wollen  wir  uns  werfen,  von  ihren  Kiissen  beseelt 
uns  aufraffen.  Welche  Aussichten !  Dein  Hymnus  an  die 
Kiihnheit  mag  Dir  zum  Motto  dienen !  Mir  gehe  die  Hofif- 
nung  voran."- 

But  it  was  in  the  form  much  more  than  in  the  contents  of  his 
poems,  that  Holderlin  carried  out  the  Greek  idea.  Most  of  his 
lyrics  are  occasional  poems,  or  have  abstract  subjects,  as  for 
example,  "An  die  Stille,"  "An  die  Ehre,"  "An  den  Genius  der 
Kiihnheit,"  and  so  on.  Only  here  and  there  does  he  take  a 
classic  subject  or  introduce  classic  references.  The  truth  of  the 
matter  is,  that  with  all  his  fervid  enthusiasm  for  Hellenic  ideals, 
and  with  all  his  Greek  cult,  Holderlin  was  not  the  genuine  Hel- 
lenist he  thought  himself  to  be.  This  is  due  to  the  fact  that  his 
turning  to  Greece  was  in  its  final  analysis  attributable  rather  to 
selfish  than  to  altruistic  motives.  He  wanted  to  get  away  from 
the  deplorable  realities  about  him,  the  things  which  hurt  his 
tender  soul,  and  so  he  constructed  for  himself  this  idealized 
world  of  ancient  and  modern  Greece,  and  peopled  it  with  his 
own  creations. 

In  Holderlin's  "Hyperion,"  we  have  the  first  poetic  work  in 
German  which  takes  modern  Greece  as  its  locality  and  a 
modern  Hellene  as  its  hero.  Holderlin  calls  it  "ein  Roman," 
but  it  would  be  rather  inaccurately  described  by  the  usual  trans- 
lation of  that  term.  It  is  not  only  the  poetic  climax  of  his 
Hellenism,  but  also  the  most  complete  expression  of  his  Welt- 

^  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  197. 
-  Briefe,  p.  160. 


28 

schmerz  in  its  various  phases.  It  must  naturally  be  both,  for 
the  poet  and  the  hero  are  one.  He  speaks  of  it  as  "mein 
Werkchen,  in  dem  ich  lebe  und  webe."^  Its  subject  is  the 
emancipation  of  Greece.  What  little  action  is  narrated  may  be 
very  briefly  indicated.  Russia  is  at  war  with  Turkey  and  calls 
upon  Hellas  to  liberate  itself.  The  hero  and  his  friend  Ala- 
banda  are  at  the  head  of  a  band  of  volunteers,  fighting  the 
Turks.  After  several  minor  successes  Hyperion  lays  siege 
to  the  Spartan  fortress  of  Misitra,  But  at  its  capitulation,  he 
is  undeceived  concerning  the  Hellenic  patriots;  they  ravage 
and  plunder  so  fiercely  that  he  turns  from  them  with  repug- 
nance and  both  he  and  Alabanda  abandon  the  cause  of  liberty 
which  they  had  championed.  To  his  bride  Hyperion  had 
promised  a  redeemed  Greece — a  lament  is  all  that  he  can  bring 
her.  She  dies,  Hyperion  comes  to  Germany  where  his 
aesthetic  Greek  soul  is  severely  jarred  by  the  sordidness,  apathy 
and  insensibility  of  these  "barbarians."  Returning  to  the 
Isthmus,  he  becomes  a  hermit  and  writes  his  letters  to  Bell- 
armin,  no  less  "thatenarm  und  gedankenvoll"  himself  than  his 
unfortunate  countrymen  whom  he  so  characterizes. - 

"Hyperion,"  though  written  in  prose,  is  scarcely  anything 
more  than  a  long  drawn  out  lyric  poem,  so  thoroughly  is  action 
subordinated  to  reflection,  and  so  beautiful  and  rhythmic  is  the 
dignified  flow  of  its  periods.  But  having  said  that  the  locality 
is  Greece  and  its  hero  is  supposed  to  be  a  modern  Greek,  that  in 
its  scenic  descriptions  Holderlin  produces  some  wonderfully 
natural  effects,  and  that  the  language  shows  the  imitation  of 
Greek  turns  of  expression — Homeric  epithets  and  similes — 
having  said  this,  we  have  mentioned  practically  all  the  Greek 
characteristics  of  the  composition.  And  there  is  much  in  it 
that  is  entirely  un-Hellenic.  To  begin  with,  the  form  in  which 
"Hyperion"  is  cast,  that  of  letters,  written  not  even  during  the 
progress  of  the  events  narrated,  but  after  they  are  all  a  thing 
of  the  past,  is  not  at  all  a  Greek  idea.  Moreover  Weltschmerz, 
which  constitutes  the  "Grundstimmung"  of  all  HolderHn's 
writings,  and  which  is  most  plainly  and  persistently  expressed 

'  Briefe,  p.  162. 
'  Cf.  supra,  p.  33. 


29 

in  "Hyperion,"  is  not  Hellenic.  Not  that  we  should  have  to 
look  in  vain  for  pessimistic  utterances  from  the  classical  poets 
of  Greece — for  does  not  Sophocles  make  the  deliberate  state- 
ment :  "Not  to  be  born  is  the  most  reasonable,  but  having  seen 
the  light,  the  next  best  thing  is  to  go  to  the  place  whence  we 
came  as  soon  as  possible."^  Nevertheless,  this  sort  of  senti- 
ment cannot  be  regarded  as  representing  the  spirit  of  the 
ancient  Greeks,  which  was  distinctly  optimistic.  They  were 
happy  in  their  worship  of  beauty  in  art  and  in  nature,  and  above 
all,  happy  in  their  creativeness.  The  question  suggests  itself 
here,  whether  a  poet  can  ever  be  a  genuine  pessimist,  since  he 
has  within  him  the  everlasting  impulse  to  create.  And  to 
create  is  to  hope.  Hyperion  himself  says :  "Es  lebte  nichts, 
wenn  es  nicht  hoffte."^  But  we  have  already  distinguished 
between  pessimism  as  a  system  of  philosophy,  and  Welt- 
schmerz  as  a  poetic  mood.^  It  is  certainly  un-Hellenic  that 
Holderlin  allows  Hyperion  with  his  alleged  Greek  nature  to 
sink  into  contemplative  inactivity. 

In  the  poem  "Der  Lorbeer,"  1789,  he  exclaims : 

Soil  ewiges  Trauern  mich  umwittern, 
Ewig  mich  toten  die  bange  Sehnsucht?* 

which  gives  expression  to  the  fact  that  in  his  Weltschmerz 
there  was  a  very  large  admixture  of  "Sehnsucht,"  an  entirely 
un-Hellenic  feeling.  Nor  is  there  to  be  found  in  his  entire 
make-up  the  slightest  trace  of  Greek  irony,  which  would  have 
enabled  him  to  overcome  much  of  the  bitterness  of  his  life,  and 
which  might  indeed  have  averted  its  final  catastrophe. 

Undeniably  Grecian  is  Holderlin's  idea  that  the  beautiful  is 
also  the  good.  Long  years  he  sought  for  this  combined  ideal. 
In  Diotima,  the  muse  of  his  "Hyperion,"  whose  prototype  was 
Susette  Gontard,  he  has  found  it — and  now  he  feels  that  he  is  in 
a  new  world.  To  his  friend  Neufifer,  from  whom  he  has  no 
secrets,  he  writes:  "Ich  konnte  wohl  sonst  glauben,  ich  wisse, 
was  schon  und  gut  sei,  aber  seit  ich's  sehe,  mocht'  ich  lachen 
tiber  all  mein  Wissen.     Lieblichkeit  und  Hoheit,  und  Rub  und 

1  CEdipus  Coloneus,"   1225  seq. 
2Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  81. 
'  Cf.    Introduction,   p.    i  f. 
*  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  89. 


30 

Leben,  und  Geist  und  Gemiit  und  Gestalt  ist  Ein  seeliges  Eins 
in  diesem  Wesen."^  And  six  or  eight  months  later:  "Mein 
Schonheitsinn  ist  nun  vor  Storung  sicher.  Er  orientiert  sich 
ewig  an  diesem  Madonnenkopfe.  .  .  .  Sie  ist  schon  wie  Engel ! 
Ein  zartes,  geistiges,  himmlisch  reizendes  Gesicht!  Ach  ich 
konnte  ein  Jahrtausend  lang  mich  und  alles  vergessen  bei  ihr — 
Majestat  und  Zartlichkeit,  und  Frohhchkeit  und  Ernst— und 
Leben  und  Geist,  alles  ist  in  und  an  ihr  zu  einem  gottlichen 
Ganzen  vereint."^  It  would  be  difficult  to  conceive  of  a  more 
complete  and  sublime  eulogy  of  any  object  of  affection  than 
the  words  just  quoted,  and  yet  they  do  not  conceal  their 
author's  etherial  quality  of  thought,  his  "Uebersinnlichkeit." 
Even  his  boyish  love-afifairs  seem  to  have  been  largely  of  this 
character,  and  were  in  all  likelihood  due  to  the  necessity  which 
he  felt  of  bestowing  his  affection  somewhere,  rather  than  to 
irresistible  forces  proceeding  from  the  objects  of  his  regard. 

Lack  of  self-restraint,  so  often  characteristic  of  the  poet  of 
Weltschmerz,  was  not  Holderlin's  greatest  fault.  And  yet  if 
his  intense  devotion  to  Susette  remained  undebased  by  sensual 
desires,  as  we  know  it  did,  this  was  not  solely  due  to  the  prac- 
tice of  heroic  self-restraint,  but  must  be  attributed  in  part  to 
the  fact  that  that  side  of  his  nature  was  entirely  subordinate  to 
his  higher  ideals ;  and  these  were  always  a  stronger  passion 
with  Holderlin  than  his  love.  So  that  Diotima's  judgment  of 
Hyperion  is  correct  when  she  says :  "O  es  ist  so  ganz  natiir- 
lich,  dass  Du  nimmer  lieben  willst,  weil  Deine  grossern 
Wiinsche  verschmachten."'  This  consideration  at  once  com- 
pels a  comparison  with  Lenau,  which  must  be  deferred,  how- 
ever, until  the  succeeding  chapter.  Undoubtedly  this  year  and 
a  half  at  Frankfurt  was  the  happiest  period  of  his  whole  life. 
It  brought  him  a  serenity  of  mind  which  he  had  never  before 
known.  Ardent  was  the  response  called  forth  by  his  devotion, 
but  its  influence  was  wholesome — it  was  soothing  to  his  sensi- 
tive nerves.  And  because  it  was  altogether  more  a  sublime 
than  an  earthly  passion,  he  indulged  himself  in  it  with  a  con- 

^  Briefe,  p.  382  f. 

^  Briefe,  p.  403-405. 

'  Werke,  Vol.   II,  p.   175. 


31 

science  void  of  offence.  Doubtless  he  correctly  describes  the 
influence  of  his  relations  with  Diotima  upon  his  life  when  he 
writes :  "Ich  sage  Dir,  lieber  Neuff'er !  ich  bin  auf  dem  Wege, 
ein  recht  guter  Knabe  zu  werden.  .  .  .  mein  Herz  ist  voll  Lust, 
und  wenn  das  heilige  Schicksal  mir  mein  gliicklich  Leben  erhalt, 
so  hoft"  ich  kiinftig  mehr  zu  thun  als  bisher.'"^  But  the  happy 
life  was  not  to  continue  long.  Rudely  the  cup  was  dashed 
from  his  lips,  and  the  poet's  pain  intensified  by  one  more  disap- 
pointment— the  bitterest  of  all  he  had  experienced.  It  filled 
him  with  thoughts  of  revenge,  which  he  was  powerless  to  exe- 
cute. There  can  be  no  question  that  if  his  love  for  Susette  had 
been  of  a  less  etherial  order,  less  a  thing  of  the  soul,  he  would 
have  felt  much  less  bitterly  her  husband's  violent  interference. 
But  returning  to  the  poem  "Hyperion,"  for  as  such  we  may 
regard  it,  we  find  in  it  the  most  complete  expression  of  the 
attitude  which  the  poet,  in  his  Weltschmerz,  assumed  toward 
nature.  Nature  is  his  constant  companion,  mother,  comforter 
in  sorrow,  in  his  brighter  moments  his  deity.  This  nature- 
worship,  which  speedily  develops  into  a  more  or  less  consistent 
pantheism,  Holderlin  expresses  in  Hyperion's  second  letter, 
in  the  following  creed :  "Eines  zu  sein  mit  allem,  was  lebt,  in 
seliger  Selbstvergessenheit  wiederzukehren  ins  All  der  Natur, 
das  ist  der  Gipfel  der  Gedanken  und  Freuden,  das  ist  die  heilige 
Bergeshohe,  der  Ort  der  ewigen  Ruhe."-  And  so  nature  is  to 
Holderlin  always  intensely  real  and  personal.  The  sea  is 
youthful,  full  of  exuberant  joy ;  the  mountain-tops  are  hopeful 
and  serene;  with  shouts  of  joy  the  stream  hurls  itself  like  a 
giant  down  into  the  forests.  Here  and  there  his  personification 
of  nature  becomes  even  more  striking:  "O  das  Morgenlicht 
und  ich,  wir  gingen  uns  entgegen,  wie  versohnte  Freunde."' 
Still  more  intense  is  this  feeling  of  personal  intimacy,  when  he 
exclaims  :  "O  selige  Natur !  ich  weiss  nicht,  wie  mir  geschiehet, 
wenn  ich  mein  Auge  erhebe  von  deiner  Schone,  aber  alle  Lust 
des  Himmels  ist  in  den  Thranen,  die  ich  weine  vor  dir,  der 
Geliebte  vor  der  Geliebten."*     It  is  important  for  purposes  of 

^  Briefe,  p.  404. 
2Werke,  Vol.   II,  p.  68. 
^  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.   100. 
«Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  68. 


32 

comparison,  to  note  that  notwithstanding  his  intense  Welt- 
schmerz,  in  his  treatment  of  nature  HolderHn  does  not  select 
only  its  gloomy  or  terrible  aspects.  Light  and  shade  alternate 
in  his  descriptions,  and  only  here  and  there  is  the  background 
entirely  unrelieved.  The  thunderstorm  is  to  him  a  dispenser  of 
divine  energies  among  forest  and  field,  even  the  seasons  of 
decline  and  decay  are  not  left  without  sunshine:  "auf  der 
stummen  entblatterten  Landschaft,  wo  der  Himmel  schoner 
als  je,  mit  Wolken  und  Sonnenschein  um  die  herbstlich  schla- 
fenden  Baume  spielte."^  One  passage  in  "Hyperion"  bears  so 
striking  a  resemblance,  however,  to  Lenau's  characteristic 
nature-pictures,  that  it  shall  be  given  in  full — although  even 
here,  when  the  gloom  of  his  sorrow  and  disappointment  was 
steadily  deepening,  he  does  not  fail  to  derive  comfort  from  the 
warm  sunshine,  a  thought  for  which  we  should  probably  look 
in  vain,  had  Lenau  painted  the  picture:  "Ich  sass  mit  Ala- 
banda  auf  einem  Hiigel  der  Gegend,  in  lieblich  warmender 
Sonn',  und  um  uns  spielte  der  Wind  mit  abgefallenem  Laube, 
Das  Land  war  stumm ;  nur  hie  und  da  ertonte  im  Wald  ein 
stiirzender  Baum,  vom  Landmann  gefallt,  und  neben  uns  mur- 
melte  der  vergangliche  Regenbach  hinab  ins  ruhige  Meer."^ 

In  spite  of  his  deep  and  persistent  Weltschmerz,  Holderlin 
rarely  gives  expression  to  a  longing  for  death.  This  forms  so 
prominent  a  feature  in  the  thought  of  other  types  of  Welt- 
schmerz, for  instance  of  Lenau  and  of  Leopardi,  that  its  ab- 
sence here  cannot  fail  to  be  noticed.  It  is  true  that  in  his 
dramatic  poem  "Der  Tod  des  Empedokles,"  which  symbolizes 
the  closing  of  his  account  with  the  world,  Holderlin  causes  his 
hero  to  return  voluntarily  to  nature  by  plunging  into  the  fiery 
crater  of  Mount  Etna.  But  Empedokles  does  this  to  atone 
for  past  sin,  not  merely  to  rid  himself  of  the  pain  of  living ;  and 
thus,  even  as  a  poetic  idea,  it  impresses  us  very  differently  from 
the  continual  yearning  for  death  which  pervades  the  writings 
of  the  two  poets  just  mentioned.  Leopardi  declared  that  it 
were  best  never  to  see  the  light,  but  denounced  suicide  as  a 
cowardly  act  of  selfishness ;  and  yet  at  the  approach  of  an  epi- 

^Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  85. 
2  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  181. 


33 

demic  of  cholera,  he  clung  so  tenaciously  to  life  that  he  urged  a 
hurried  departure  from  Naples,  regardless  of  the  hardships  of 
such  a  journey  in  his  feeble  condition,  and  took  refuge  in  a 
little  villa  near  Vesuvius.  Holderlin's  Weltschmerz  was  abso- 
lutely sincere. 

Numerous  passages  might  be  quoted  to  show  that  Holder- 
lin's mind  was  intensely  introspective.  This  is  true  also  of 
Lenau,  even  to  a  greater  extent,  and  may  be  taken  as  generally 
characteristic  of  poets  of  this  type.  The  fact  that  this  intro- 
spection is  an  inevitable  symptom  in  many  mental  derange- 
ments, hypochondria,  melancholia  and  others,  indicates  a  not 
very  remote  relation  of  Weltschmerz  to  insanity.  In  Holder- 
lin's poems  there  are  not  a  few  premonitions  of  the  sad  fate 
which  awaited  him.  One  illustration  from  the  poem  "An  die 
Hoffnung,"  1801,  may  suffice: 

Wo  bist  du?  wenig  lebt'  ich,  doch  atmet  kalt 
Mein  Abend  schon.     Und  stille,  den  Schatten  gleich, 
Bin  ich  schon  hier;  und  schon  gesanglos 
Schlummert  das  schau'rende  Herz  im  Busen/ 

It  is  impossible  to  read  these  lines  without  feeling  something  of 
the  cold  chill  of  the  heart  that  Holderlin  felt  was  already  upon 
him,  and  which  he  expresses  in  a  manner  so  intensely  realistic 
and  yet  so  beautiful. 

Having  thus  attempted  a  review  of  the  growth  of  Holder- 
lin's Weltschmerz  and  of  its  chief  characteristics,  it  merely 
remains  to  conclude  the  chapter  with  a  brief  resume.  We 
have  then  in  Friedrich  Holderlin  a  youth  peculiarly  predis- 
posed to  feel  himself  isolated  from  and  repelled  by  the  world, 
growing  up  without  a  strong  fatherly  hand  to  guide,  giving 
himself  over  more  and  more  to  solitude  and  so  becoming 
continually  less  able  to  cope  with  untoward  circumstances  and 
conditions.  Growing  into  manhood,  he  was  unfortunate  in  all 
his  love-affairs  and  as  though  doomed  to  unceasing  disappoint- 
ments. Early  in  life  he  devoted  himself  to  the  study  of  an- 
tiquity, making  Greece  his  hobby,  and  thus  creating  for  himself 
an  ideal  world  which  existed  only  in  his  imagination,  and  taking 
refuge  in  it  from  the  buffetings  of  the  world  about  him.     He  was 

1  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  253. 

3 


34 

a  man  of  a  deeply  philosophical  trend  of  mind,  and  while  not 
often  speaking-  of  it,  felt  very  keenly  the  humiliating  condition 
of  Germany,  although  his  patriotic  enthusiasm  found  its  artistic 
expression  not  with  reference  to  Germany  but  to  Greece.  As  a 
poet,  finally,  his  intimacy  with  nature  was  such  that  nature-wor- 
ship and  pantheism  became  his  religion. 

In  reviewing  the  whole  range  of  Holderlin's  writings,  we 
cannot  avoid  the  conclusion,  that  in  him  we  have  a  type  of 
Weltschmerz  in  the  broadest  sense  of  the  term;  we  might 
almost  term  it  Byronism,  with  the  sensual  element  eliminated. 
He  shows  the  hypersensitiveness  of  Werther,  fanatical  enthusi- 
asm for  a  vague  ideal  of  liberty,  vehement  opposition  to  exist- 
ing social  and  political  conditions ;  there  is,  in  fact,  a  breadth  in 
his  Weltschmerz,  which  makes  the  sorrows  of  Werther  seem 
very  highly  specialized  in  comparison.  Bearing  in  mind  the 
distinction  made  between  the  two  classes,  we  must  designate 
Holderlin's  Weltschmerz  as  cosmic  rather  than  egoistic;  the 
egoistic  element  is  there,  but  it  is  outweighed  by  the  cosmic  and 
finds  its  poetic  expression  not  so  frequently  nor  so  intensely 
with  reference  to  the  poet  himself,  as  with  reference  to  mankind 
at  large. 


CHAPTER  III 


Lenau 


If  Holderlin's  Weltschmerz  has  been  fittingly  characterized 
as  idealistic,  Lenau's  on  the  other  hand  may  appropriately  be 
termed  the  naturalistic  type.  He  is  par  excellence  the  "Pathet- 
iker"  of  Weltschmerz. 

Without  presuming  even  to  attempt  a  final  solution  of  a 
problem  of  pathology  concerning  which  specialists  have  failed 
to  agree,  there  seems  to  be  sufficient  circumstantial  as  well  as 
direct  evidence  to  warrant  the  assumption  that  Lenau's  case 
presents  an  instance  of  hereditary  taint.  Notwithstanding  the 
fact  that  Dr.  Karl  Weiler^  discredits  the  idea  of  "erbliche  Be- 
lastung"  and  calls  heredity  "den  vielgerittenen  Verlegenheits- 
gaul,"  the  conclusion  forces  itself  upon  us  that  if  the  theory 
has  any  scientific  value  whatsoever,  no  more  plausible  instance 
of  it  could  be  found  than  the  one  under  consideration.  The 
poet's  great-grandfather  and  grandfather  had  been  officers  in 
the  Austrian  army,  the  latter  with  some  considerable  distinc- 
tion. Of  his  five  children,  only  Franz,  the  poet's  father,  sur- 
vived. The  complete  lack  of  anything  like  a  systematic 
education,  and  the  nomadic  life  of  the  army  did  not  fail  to 
produce  the  most  disastrous  results  in  the  wild  and  dissolute 
character  of  the  young  man.  Even  before  the  birth  of  the  poet, 
his  father  had  broken  his  marriage  vows  and  his  wife's  heart  by 
his  abominable  dissipations  and  drunkenness.  Lenau  was  but 
five  years  old  when  his  father,  not  yet  thirty-five,  died  of  a  dis- 
ease which  he  is  believed  to  have  contracted  as  a  result  of  these 
sensual  and  senseless  excesses.  To  the  poet  he  bequeathed 
something  of  his  own  pathological  sensuality,  instability  of 
thought  and  action,  lack  of  will-energy,  and  the  tears  of  a  heart- 

^  Euphorion,  1899,  p.  791. 

35 


36 

broken  mother,  a  sufficient  guarantee,  surely,  of  a  poet  of  mel- 
ancholy. Even  though  we  cannot  avoid  the  reflection  that  the 
loss  of  such  a  father  was  a  blessing  in  disguise,  the  fact  remains 
that  Lenau  during  his  childhood  and  youth  needed  paternal 
guidance  and  training  even  more  than  did  Holderlin.  He  be- 
came the  idol  of  his  mother,  who  in  her  blind  devotion  did  not 
hesitate  to  show  him  the  utmost  partiality  in  all  things.  This 
important  fact  alone  must  account  to  a  large  extent  for  that  pre- 
sumptuous pride,  which  led  him  to  expect  perhaps  more  than 
his  just  share  from  life  and  from  the  world. 

Lenau's  aimlessness  and  instability  were  so  extreme  that  they 
may  properly  be  counted  a  pathological  trait.  It  is  best  illus- 
trated by  his  university  career.  In  1819  he  went  to  Vienna 
to  commence  his  studies.  Beginning  with  Philosophy,  he  soon 
transferred  his  interests  to  Law,  first  Hungarian,  then  Ger- 
man; finding  the  study  of  Law  entirely  unsuited  to  his  tastes, 
he  now  declared  his  intention  of  pursuing  once  more  a  phil- 
osophical course,  with  a  view  to  an  eventual  professorship. 
But  this  plan  was  frustrated  by  his  grandmother,  the  upshot  of 
it  all  being  that  Lenau  allowed  himself  to  be  persuaded  to  take 
up  the  study  of  agriculture  at  Altenburg.  But  a  few  months 
sufficed  to  bring  him  back  to  Vienna.  Here  his  legal  studies, 
which  he  had  resumed  and  almost  completed,  were  interrupted 
by  a  severe  affection  of  the  throat  which  developed  into 
laryngitis  and  from  which  he  never  quite  recovered.  This  too, 
according  to  Dr.  Sadger,^  marks  the  neurasthenic,  and  often 
constitutes  a  hereditary  taint.  Lenau  thereupon  shifted  once 
more  and  entered  upon  a  medical  course,  this  time  not  abso- 
lutely without  predilection.  He  did  himself  no  small  credit  in 
his  medical  examinations,  but  the  death  of  his  grandmother, 
just  before  his  intended  graduation,  provided  a  sufficient  ex- 
cuse for  him  to  discontinue  the  work,  which  was  never  again 
resumed  or  brought  to  a  conclusion.  But  not  only  in  matters 
of  such  relative  importance  did  Lenau  exhibit  this  vacillation. 
There  was  a  spirit  of  restlessness  in  him  which  made  it  impos- 
sible for  him  to  remain  long  in  the  same  place.  Of  this  condi- 
tion no  one  was  more  fully  aware  than  he  himself.     In  one  of 

^  "Nicolaus  Lenau,"  Neue  Fr.  Pr.,  Nr.  ii  166-7 


37 

his  letters  he  writes:  "Gestern  hat  jemand  berechnet,  wieviel 
Poststunden  ich  in  zwei  Monaten  gefahren  bin,  und  es  ergab 
sich  die  kolossale  Summe  von  644,  die  ich  im  Eilwagen  unter 
bestandiger  Gemiitsbewegung  gefahren  bin."^  That  this  habit 
of  almost  incessant  travel  tended  to  aggravate  his  nervous 
condition  is  a  fair  supposition,  notwithstanding  the  fact  that 
Dr.  Karl  Weiler-  skeptically  asks  "what  about  commercial 
travellers?"  Lenau  himself  complains  frequently  of  the  dis- 
tressing effect  of  such  journeys:  "Ein  heftiger  Kopfschmerz 
und  grosse  iMiidigkeit  waren  die  Folgen  der  von  Linz  an  un- 
ausgesetzten  Reise  im  Eilwagen  bei  schlechtem  Wetter  und 
abmiidenden  Gedanken  an  meine  Zukunft."^  Many  similar 
statements  might  be  quoted  from  his  letters  to  show  that  it  was 
not  merely  the  ordinary  process  of  traveling,  though  that  at 
best  must  have  been  trying  enough,  but  the  breathless  haste  of 
his  journeys,  combined  with  mental  anxiety,  which  usually 
characterized  them,  that  made  them  so  detrimental  to  his 
health. 

It  is  as  interesting  as  it  is  significant  to  note  in  this  connec- 
tion the  fact  that  while  on  a  journey  to  Munich,  just  a  short 
time  before  the  light  of  his  intellect  failed,  Lenau  wrote  the 
following  lines,  the  last  but  one  of  all  his  poems : 

's  ist  eitel  niclits,  wohin  mein  Aug'  ich  hefte! 
Das  Leben  ist  ein  vielbesagtes  Wandern, 
Ein  wiistes  Jagen  ist's  von  dem  zum  andern, 
Und  unterwegs  verlieren  wir  die  Krafte. 

Doch  tragt  uns  eine  Macht  von  Stund  zu  Stund, 
Wie's  Kruglein,  das  am  Brunnenstein  zersprang, 
Und  dessen  Inhalt  sickert  auf  den  Grund, 
So  wait  es  ging,  den  ganzen  Weg  entlang, — 
Nun  ist  es  leer.     Wer  mag  daraus  noch  trinken? 
Und  zu  den  andern  Scherben  muss  es  sinken.* 

Holderlin  also  uses  the  striking  figure  contained  in  the  last 
line,  not  however  as  here  to  picture  the  worthlessness  of  human 

*  Schurz,  Vol.  II,  p.  212. 

*  Cf.  Eiiphorton,   1899,  p.  795. 

'Anton  Schurz:  "Lenau's  Leben,"  Cotta,  1855  (hereafter  quoted  as  "Schurz"), 
Vol.  II,  p.  199. 

*  "Lenaus  Werke,"  ed  Max  Koch,  in  Kiirschner's  DNL.  (hereafter  quoted  as 
"Werke"),  Vol.  I,  p.  S2sf. 


38 

life  in  general,  but  to  stigmatize  the  Germans,  whom  Hyperion 
describes  as  "dumpf  und  harmonielos,  wie  die  Scherben  eines 
weggeworfenen  Gefasses."^ 

That  Lenau  was  a  neurasthenic  seems  to  be  the  consensus  of 
opinion,  at  least  of  those  medical  authorities  who  have  given 
their  views  of  the  case  to  the  public.-  This  fact  also  has  an 
important  bearing  upon  our  discussion,  since  it  will  help  to 
show  a  materially  different  origin  for  Lenau's  Weltschmerz 
and  Holderlin's. 

Much  more  frequent  than  in  the  case  of  the  latter  are  the 
ominous  forebodings  of  impending  disaster  which  characterize 
Lenau's  poems  and  correspondence.  In  a  letter  to  his  friend 
Karl  Mayer  he  writes:  "Mich  regiert  eine  Art  Gravitation 
nach  dem  Ungliicke.  Schwab  hat  einmal  von  einem  Wahnsinn- 
igen  sehr  geistreich  gesprochen.  .  .  .  Ein  Analogon  von  sol- 
chem  Damon  (des  Wahnsinns)  glaub'  ich  auch  in  mir  zu  be- 
herbergen."^  He  is  continually  engaged  in  a  gruesome  self- 
diagnosis  :  "Dann  ist  mir  zuweilen,  als  hielte  der  Teufel  seine 
Jagd  in  dem  Nervenwalde  meines  Unterleibes :  ich  hore  ein 
deutliches  Hundegebell  daselbst  und  ein  dumpfes  Halloh  des 
Schwarzen.  Ohne  Scherz ;  es  ist  oft  zum  Verzweifeln."* 
This  process  of  self-diagnosis  may  be  due  in  part  to  his  med- 
ical studies,  but  much  more,  we  think,  to  his  morbid  imagina- 
tion, which  led  him,  on  more  than  one  occasion,  to  play  the 
madman  in  so  realistic  a  manner  that  strangers  were  fright- 
ened out  of  their  wits  and  even  his  friends  became  alarmed, 
lest  it  might  be  earnest  and  not  jest  which  they  were  witnessing. 

Lenau  was  not  without  a  certain  sense  of  humor,  grim 
humor  though  it  was,  and  here  and  there  in  his  letters  there  is 
an  admixture  of  levity  with  the  all-pervading  melancholy.  An 
example  may  be  quoted  from  a  letter  to  Kerner  in  Weinsberg, 
dated  1832 :  "Heute  bin  ich  wieder  bei  Reinbecks  auf  ein 
grosses  Spargelessen.  Sparge!  wie  Kirchthurme  werden  da 
gefressen.      Ich  allein  verschlinge  50-60  solcher  Kirchthurme 

^  Cf.  supra,  p.  22. 

'  Cf.  among  others  Sadger,  Weiler.     Infra,  p.  88. 

'  "Nicolaus  Lenau's  Briefe  an  einen  Freund,"  Stuttgart,  1853,  p.  68  f. 
*  "Nicolaus   Lenau's   sammtliche   Werke,"   herausgegeben   von    G.    Emil    Barthel, 
Leipzig,  Reclam,  p.  CL 


39 

und  komme  mir  dabei  vor,  wie  eine  Parodie  imserer  politisch- 
prosaischen,  durchaus  uiiheiligen  Zeit,  die  auch  schon  das 
Maul  aufsperrt,  um  alles  Heilige,  und  namentlich  die  guten 
glaubigen  Kirchthiirme  wie  Spargelstangen  zu  verschlingen." 
The  letter  concludes  with  the  signature :  'Teh  umarme  Dich, 
bis  Dir  die  Rippen  krachen.  Dein  Niembsch."^  Not  infre- 
quently this  humor  was  at  his  own  expense,  especially  when 
describing  an  unpleasant  condition  or  situation,  as  for  example 
in  a  letter  to  Sophie  Lowenthal  in  the  year  1844 :  "J^tzt  lebe 
ich  hier  in  Saus  und  Braus, — d.  h.  es  saust  und  braust  mir  der 
Kopf  von  einem  leidigen  Schnupfen."^  Again,  on  finding  him- 
self on  one  occasion  very  unwell  and  uncomfortable  in  Stutt- 
gart, he  writes  as  follows :  "Bestandiges  Unwohlsein,  Kopf- 
schmerz,  Schlaflosigkeit,  Mattigkeit,  schlechte  Verdauung, 
Rhabarber,  Druckfehler,  und  Aerger  iiber  den  tragen  Fort- 
schlich  meiner  Geschafte,  das  waren  die  Freuden  meiner 
letzten  Woche.  Emilie  will  es  nicht  gelten  lassen,  dass  die 
Stuttgarter  Luft  nichts  als  die  Ausdiinstung  des  Teufels  sei. — 
Ich  schnappe  nach  Luft,  wie  ein  Spatz  unter  der  Luftpumpe. — 
In  vielen  der  hiesigen  Strassen  riecht  es  am  Ende  auch 
lenzhaft,  namlich  pestilenzhaft,  und  die  guten  Stuttgarter 
merken  das  gar  nicht ;  'siiss  duftet  die  Heimat.'  "^  In  his 
fondness  for  bringing  together  the  incongruous,  for  introduc- 
ing the  element  of  surprise,  and  in  the  fact  that  his  humor  is 
almost  always  of  the  impatient,  disgruntled,  cynical  type, 
Lenau  reminds  us  not  a  little  of  Heine  in  his  "Reisebilder"  and 
some  other  prose  works.  Holderlin,  on  the  other  hand,  may 
be  said  to  have  been  utterly  devoid  of  humor. 

Lack  of  self-control,  perhaps  the  most  characteristic  trait 
among  men  of  genius,  was  even  more  pronounced  in  Lenau 
than  in  Holderlin,  This  shows  itself  in  the  extreme  irregu- 
larity of  his  habits  of  life.  For  instance,  it  was  his  custom 
to  work  long  past  the  midnight  hour,  and  then  take  his  rest 
until  nearly  noon.  He  could  never  get  his  coffee  quite  strong 
enough  to  suit  him,  although  it  was  prepared  almost  in  the 

^  Schurz,  Vol.  I,  p.  169. 
-  Schurz,  Vol.  II,  p.  144. 
*  Schurz,  Vol.  II,  p.  i52f. 


40 

form  of  a  concentrated  tincture  and  he  drank  large  quantities 
of  it.  He  smoked  to  excess,  and  the  strongest  cigars  at  that ;  in 
short,  he  seems  to  have  been  entirely  without  regard  for  his 
physical  condition.  Or  was  it  perverseness  which  prompted 
him  to  prefer  close  confinement  in  his  room  to  the  long  walks 
which  he  ought  to  have  taken  for  his  health  ?  Even  his  recre- 
ation, which  consisted  chiefly  in  playing  the  violin,  brought 
him  no  nervous  relaxation,  for  it  is  said  that  he  would  often 
play  himself  into  a  state  of  extreme  nervous  excitement. 

All  these  considerations  corroborate  the  opinion  of  those 
who  knew  him  best,  that  his  Weltschmerz,  and  eventually  his 
insanity,  had  its  origin  in  a  pathological  condition.  Indeed 
this  was  the  poet's  own  view  of  the  case.  In  a  letter  to  his 
brother-in-law,  Anton  Schurz,  dated  1834,  he  says:  "Aber, 
lieber  Bruder,  die  Hypochondrie  schlagt  bei  mir  immer  tiefere 
Wurzel.  Es  hilft  alles  nichts.  Der  gewisse  innere  Riss  wird 
immer  tiefer  und  weiter.  Es  hilft  alles  nichts.  Ich  weiss,  es 
liegt  im  Korper ;  aber — aber — "^  In  its  origin  then,  Lenau's 
Weltschmerz  dififers  altogether  from  that  of  Holderlin,  who 
exhibits  no  such  symptoms  of  neurasthenia. 

Lenau's  nervous  condition  was  seriously  aggravated  at  an 
early  date  by  the  outcome  of  his  unfortunate  relations  with  the 
object  of  his  first  love,  Bertha,  who  became  his  mistress  when 
he  was  still  a  mere  boy.  His  grief  on  finding  her  faithless  was 
doubtless  as  genuine  as  his  conduct  with  her  had  been  repre- 
hensible, for  he  cherished  for  many  long  years  the  memory  of 
his  painful  disappointment.  The  general  statement,  "Lenau 
war  stets  verlobt,  fand  aber  stets  in  sich  selbst  einen  Wider- 
stand  und  unerklarliche  Angst,  wenn  die  Verbindung  endgiltig 
gemacht  werden  soUte,"-  is  inaccurate  and  misleading,  inas- 
much as  it  fails  to  take  into  proper  account  the  causes,  mediate 
and  immediate,  of  his  hesitation  to  marry.  Lenau  was  only 
once  "verlobt,"  and  it  was  the  stroke  of  facial  paralysis^  which 
announced  the  beginning  of  the  end,  rather  than  any  "un- 

^  Schurz,  Vol.  I,  p.  275. 

*  Ricarda  Huch:  "Romantische  Lebenslaufe."  Neue  d.  Rundschau,  Feb.  1902, 
p.   126. 

'Sept.  29,  1844.     Cf.  Schurz,  Vol.  II,  p.  223. 


41 

erklarliche  Angst,"  that  convinced  him  of  the  inexpediency  of 
that  important  step. 

Beyond  a  doubt  his  long  drawn  out  and  abject  devotion  to 
the  wife  of  his  friend  Max  Lowenthal  proved  the  most  impor- 
tant single  factor  in  his  life.  It  was  during  the  year  1834, 
after  his  return  from  America,  that  Lenau  made  the  acquaint- 
ance of  the  Lowenthal  family  in  Vienna.^  Sophie,  who  was 
the  sister  of  his  old  comrade  Fritz  Kleyle,  so  attracted  the 
poet  that  he  remained  in  the  city  for  a  number  of  weeks  instead 
of  going  at  once  to  Stuttgart,  as  he  had  planned  and  promised. 
What  at  first  seemed  an  ideal  friendship,  increased  in  inten- 
sity until  it  became,  at  least  on  Lenau's  part,  the  very  glow  of 
passion.  We  have  already  alluded  to  the  poet's  premature 
erotic  instinct,  an  impulse  which  he  doubtless  inherited  from 
his  sensual  parents.  In  his  numerous  letters  and  notes  to 
Sophie,  he  has  left  us  a  remarkable  record  of  the  intensity  of 
his  passion.  Not  even  excepting  Goethe's  letters  to  Frau  von 
Stein,  there  are  no  love-letters  in  the  German  language  to 
equal  these  in  literary  or  artistic  merit ;  and  never  has  any 
other  German  poet  addressed  himself  with  more  ardent  devo- 
tion to  a  woman.  A  characteristic  difference  between  Holder- 
lin  and  Lenau  here  becomes  evident:  the  former,  even  in  his 
relations  with  Diotima,  supersensual ;  the  latter  the  very  incar- 
nation of  sensuality.  Lenau  was  fully  conscious  of  the  tre- 
mendous struggle  with  overpowering  passion,  and  once  con- 
fessed to  his  clerical  friend  Martensen  that  only  through  the 
unassailable  chastity  of  his  lady-love  had  his  conscience  re- 
mained void  of  offence.  Almost  any  of  his  innumerable 
protestations  of  love  taken  at  random  would  seem  like  the 
most  extravagant  attempt  to  give  utterance  to  the  inexpres- 
sible :  "Gottes  starke  Hand  driickt  mich  so  fest  an  Dich,  dass 
ich  seufzen  muss  und  ringen  mit  erdriickender  Wonne,  und 
meine  Seele  keinen  Atem  mehr  hat,  wenn  sie  nicht  Deine  Liebe 
saugen  kann.  Ach  Sophie !  ach,  liebe,  liebe,  liebe  Sophie  !"^ 
"Ich   bete   Dich   an,   Du   bist   mein    Liebstes   und   Hochstes."' 

•L.  A.  Frankl:    "Lenau  und  Sophie  Lowenthal,"  Stuttgart,  1891  (hereafter  quoted 
as  "Frankl")   p.   189,  incorrectly  states  the  date  as  1838.     Possibly  it  is  a  misprint 

*  Frankl,  p.   155. 

*  Frankl,  p.  151. 


42 

"Am  sechstcn  Juni  reis'  ich  ab,  nichts  darf  mich  halten.  Mir 
brennt  Leib  unci  Seele  nach  Dir,  Du !  O  Sophie !  Hiitt'  ich 
Dich  da !  Das  \'erlangen  schnierzt,  O  Gott  !"^  Instead  of  ex- 
periencing the  soothing  influences  of  a  Diotima,  Lenau's  fate 
was  to  be  cngrp:ed  for  ten  long  years  in  a  hot  conflict  between 
principle  and  passion,  a  conflict  which  kept  his  naturally  over- 
sensitive nerves  continually  on  the  rack.  He  himself  expresses 
the  detrimental  effect  of  this  situation  :  "So  treibt  mich  die 
Liebe  von  einer  Raserei  zur  andern,  von  der  ziigellosesten 
Freude  zu  verzweifeltem  Unmut.  Warum?  Weil  ich  am  Ziel 
der  hochsten,  so  heiss  ersehnten  Wonne  immer  wieder  umkehren 
muss,  weil  die  Sehnsucht  nie  gestillt  wird,  wird  sie  irr  und  wild 
und  verkehrt  sich  in  Verzweiflung, — das  ist  die  Geschichte 
meines  Herzens."-  It  would  seem  from  the  tone  of  many  of 
his  letters  that  there  was  much  deliberate  and  successful  effort 
on  the  part  of  Sophie  to  keep  Lenau's  feelings  toward  her  al- 
ways in  a  state  of  the  highest  nervous  tension.  So  cleverly  did 
she  manage  this  that  even  her  caprices  put  him  only  the  more 
hopelessly  at  her  mercy.  One  day  he  writes :  "Mit  grosser 
Ungeduld  erwartete  ich  gestern  die  Post,  und  sie  brachte  mir 
audi  einen  Brief  von  Dir,  aber  einen,  der  mich  krankt."^  For 
a  day  or  two  he  is  rebellious  and  writes :  "Ich  bin  verstimmt, 
missmutig.  Warum  storst  Du  mein  Herz  in  seinen  schonen 
Gedanken  von  innigem  Zusammenleben  auch  in  der  Feme?"* 
But  only  a  few  days  later  he  is  again  at  her  feet:  "Ich  habe 
Dir  heute  wieder  geschrieben,  um  Dich  auch  zum  Schreiben  zu 
treiben.  Ich  sehne  mich  nach  Deinen  Briefen.  Du  bist  nicht 
sehr  eifrig,  Du  bist  es  wohl  nie  gewesen.  Und  kommt  endlich 
einmal  ein  Brief,  so  hat  er  mcist  seinen  Haken — O  liebe 
Sophie !  wie  lieb'  ich  Dich  !"^  Her  attitude  on  several  oc- 
casions leaves  room  for  no  other  inference  than  that  she  was 
extremely  jealous  of  his  affections.  When  in  1839  a  mutual 
regard  sprang  up  between  Lenau  and  the  singer  Karoline 
Unger,  a  regard  which  held  out  to  him  the  hope  of  a  fuller  and 

*  Frankl,  p.  164. 
^  Frankl,  p.  102. 
^  Frankl,  p.  149. 

*  Frankl,  p.  150. 
"  Frankl,  p.  150. 


43 

happier  existence,  we  may  surmise  the  nature  of  Sophie's  inter- 
ference from  the  following  reply  to  her:  "Sie  haben  mir  mit 
Ihren  paar  Zeilen  das  Herz  zerschmettert, — Karoline  liebt 
mich  und  will  mein  werden.  Sie  sieht's  als  ihre  Sendung  an, 
mein  Leben  zu  versohnen  und  zu  begliicken. — Es  ist  an  Ihnen 
Menschlichkeit  zu  iiben  an  meinem  zerrissenen  Herzen. — Ver- 
stosse  ich  sie,  so  mache  ich  sie  elend  und  mich  zugleich. — 
Entziehen  Sie  mir  Ihr  Herz,  so  geben  Sie  mir  den  Tod ;  sind 
Sie  ungliicklich,  so  will  ich  sterben.  Der  Knoten  ist  geschiirzt. 
Ich  wollte,  ich  ware  schon  tot  !''^  Not  only  was  this  proposed 
match  broken  off,  but  when  some  five  years  later  Lenau  made 
the  acquaintance  of  and  became  engaged  to  a  charming  young 
girl,  Marie  Behrends,  and  all  the  poet's  friends  rejoiced  with 
him  at  the  prospect  of  a  happy  marriage,  a  "Musterehe,"  as 
he  fondly  called  it,  Sophie  wrote  him  the  cruel  words : 
"Eines  von  uns  muss  wahnsinnig  werden."-  Only  a  few 
months    were  needed  to  decide  which  of  them  it  should  be. 

The  foregoing  illustrations  are  ample  to  show  what  sort  of 
influence  Sophie  exerted  over  the  poet's  entire  nature,  and 
therefore  upon  his  Weltschmerz.  Whereas  in  their  hopeless 
loves,  Holderlin  and  to  an  even  greater  extent  Goethe,  strug- 
gled through  to  the  point  of  renunciation,  Lenau  constantly 
retrogrades,  and  allows  his  baser  sensual  instincts  more  and 
more  to  control  him.  He  promises  to  subdue  his  wild  out- 
bursts a  little,'''  and  when  he  fails  he  tries  to  explain/  to  apol- 
ogize.^ If  with  Holderlin  love  was  to  a  predominating  degree 
a  thing  of  the  soul,  it  was  with  Lenau  in  an  equal  measure  a 
matter  of  nerves,  and  as  such,  under  these  conditions,  it  could 
not  but  contribute  largely  to  his  physical,  mental  and  moral 
disruption.  With  Holderlin  it  was  the  rude  interruption  from 
without  of  his  quiet  and  happy  intercourse  with  Susette,  which 
embittered  his  soul.  With  Lenau  it  was  the  feverish,  tumultu- 
ous nature  of  the  love  itself,  that  deepened  his  melancholy. 

1  Schurz,  Vol.  II,  p.  7. 

-  Cf.  Lenaii's  Sammtl.  Werke,  herausg.  von  G.  Emil  Bartel,  Leipzig,  ohne  Jahr. 
Introd.,  p.  clxv. 
'  Frankl,  p.  32. 
*  Frankl,  p.   14. 
"  Frankl,  p.  30. 


44 

The  charge  of  affectation  in  their  Weltschmerz  would  be  an 
entirely  baseless  one,  both  in  the  case  of  Holderlin  and  Lenau. 
But  this  difference  is  readily  discovered  in  the  impressions 
made  upon  us  by  their  writings,  namely  that  Holderlin's  Welt- 
schmerz is  absolutely  naive  and  unconscious,  while  that  of 
Lenau  is  at  all  times  self-conscious  and  self-centered.  Men- 
tion has  already  been  made,  in  speaking  of  Lenau's  pathological 
traits,^  of  his  confirmed  habit  of  self-diagnosis.  This  he  ap- 
plied not  only  to  his  physical  condition  but  to  his  mental  expe- 
riences as  well.  No  one  knew  so  well  as  he  how  deeply  the 
roots  of  melancholy  had  penetrated  his  being.  'Teh  bin  ein 
Melancholiker"  he  once  wrote  to  Sophie,  "der  Kompass  meiner 
Seele  zittert  immer  wieder  zuriick  nach  dem  Schmerze  des 
Lebens."-  Innumerable  illustrations  of  this  fact  might  be 
found  in  his  lyrics,  all  of  which  would  repeat  with  variations 
the  theme  of  the  stanza : 

Du  geleitest  mich  durch's  Leben 

Sinnende  Melancholic! 

Mag  mein  Stern  sich  strebend  heben, 

Mag  er  sinken, — weichest  nie  !^ 

The  definite  purpose  with  which  the  poet  seeks  out  and  strives 
to  keep  intact  his  painful  impressions  is  frankly  stated  in  one 
of  his  diary  memoranda,  as  follows:  "So  gibt  es  eine  Hohe 
des  Kummers,  auf  welcher  angelangt  wir  einer  einzelnen 
Empfindung  nicht  nachspringen,  sondern  sie  laufen  lassen, 
weil  wir  den  Blick  fiir  das  schmerzliche  Ganze  nicht  verlieren, 
sondern  eine  gewisse  kummervolle  Sammlung  behalten  wollen, 
die  bei  aller  scheinbaren  Aussenheiterkeit  recht  gut  fort- 
bestehen  kann."*  Holderlin,  as  we  have  noted, ^  not  infre- 
quently pictures  himself  as  a  sacrifice  to  the  cause  of  liberty 
and  fatherland,  to  the  new  era  that  is  to  come: 

Umsonst  zu  sterben,  lieb'  ich  nicht;  doch 

Lieb'  ich  zu  fallen  am  Opferhiigel 

Fiir's  Vaterland,  zu  bluten  des  Herzens  Blut, 

Fur's  Vaterland  .  .  .  ." 


iCf.  s:ipra, 

p.  38. 

"Frankl,  p. 

15- 

»  Werke,  I, 

p.  89. 

*  Frankl,  p. 

114. 

»  Cf.  supra. 

p.  18. 

»  Holderlins 

1    Werke, 

Vol. 

I,  p.  19s. 


45 

Lenau,  on  the  other  hand,  is  anxious  to  sacrifice  himself  to  his 
muse.  "Kiinstlerische  Ausbildung  ist  mein  hochster  Lebens- 
zweck ;  alle  Krafte  meines  Geistes,  meines  Gemiites  betracht' 
ich  als  Mittel  dazu.  Erinnerst  Du  Dich  des  Gedichtes  von 
Chamisso/  wo  der  Maler  einen  Jiingling  ans  Kreuz  nagelt,  um 
ein  Bild  vom  Todesschmerze  zu  haben?  Ich  will  mich  selber 
ans  Kreuz  schlagen,  wenn's  nur  ein  gutes  Gedicht  gibt."-  And 
again :  "Vielleicht  ist  die  Eigenschaft  meiner  Poesie,  dass  sie 
ein  Selbstopfer  ist,  das  Beste  daran."^  The  specific  instances 
just  cited,  together  with  the  inevitable  impressions  gathered 
from  the  reading  of  his  lyrics,  make  it  impossible  to  avoid 
the  conclusion  that  we  are  dealing  here  with  a  virtuoso  of 
Weltschmerz ;  that  Lenau  was  not  only  conscious  at  all  times 
of  the  depth  of  his  sorrow,  but  that  he  was  also  fully  aware 
of  its  picturesqueness  and  its  poetic  possibilities.  It  is  true 
that  this  self-consciousness  brings  him  dangerously  near  the 
bounds  of  insincerity,  but  it  must  also  be  granted  that  he  never 
oversteps  those  bounds. 

Regarded  as  a  psychological  process,  Lenau's  Weltschmerz 
therefore  stands  midway  between  that  of  Holderlin  and  Heine. 
It  is  more  self-centred  than  Holderlin's  and  while  the  poet  is 
able  to  diagnose  the  disease  which  holds  him  firmly  in  its  grasp, 
he  lacks  those  means  by  which  he  might  free  himself  from  it. 
Heine  goes  still  further,  for  having  become  conscious  of  his 
melancholy,  he  mercilessly  applies  the  lash  of  self-irony,  and 
in  it  finds  the  antidote  for  his  Weltschmerz. 

Fichte,  says  Erich  Schmidt,  calls  egoism  the  spirit  of  the 
eighteenth  century,  by  which  he  means  the  revelling,  the  com- 
plete absorption,  in  the  personal.  This  will  naturally  find  its 
favorite  occupation  in  sentimental  self-contemplation,  which 
becomes  a  sort  of  fashionable  epidemic.  It  is  this  fashion 
which  Goethe  wished  to  depict  in  "Werther,"  and  therefore 
Werther's  hopeless  love  is  not  wholly  responsible  for  his  sui- 
cide. "Werther  untergrabt  sein  Dasein  durch  Selbstbetrach- 
tung,"  is  Goethe's  own  explanation  of  the  case.*     And  it  is  in 

^  "Das  Kruzifix,  Eine  Kunstlerlegende,"   1820. 

^'Schurz,  Vol.  I,  p.  is8f. 

^  Schurz,  Vol.  II,  p.  6. 

*  Cf.   Breitinger:     "Studien  und  Wandertage;"   Frauenfeld,  Huber,   1870. 


46 

this  light  only  that  Werther's  malady  deserves  in  any  compre- 
hensive sense  the  term  Weltschmerz.  Here,  then,  Lenau  and 
Werther  stand  on  common  ground.  Other  traits  common  to 
most  poets  of  Weltschmerz  might  here  be  enumerated  as  charac- 
teristic of  both,  such  as  extreme  fickleness  of  purpose,  supersen- 
sitiveness,  lack  of  definite  vocation,  and  the  like;  all  of  which 
goes  to  show  that  while  for  artistic  purposes  Goethe  required  a 
dramatic  cause,  or  rather  occasion,  for  Werther's  suicide,  he 
nevertheless  fully  understood  all  the  symptoms  of  the  prevail- 
ing disease  with  which  his  sentimental  hero  was  afflicted. 

While  the  personal  elements  in  Lenau's  Weltschmerz  are 
much  more  intense  in  their  expression  than  with  Holderlin,  its 
altruistic  side  is  proportionately  weaker.  So  far  as  we  may 
judge  from  his  lyrics,  very  little  of  Lenau's  Weltschmerz  was 
inspired  by  patriotic  considerations.  There  is  opposition,  it  is 
true,  to  the  existing  order,  but  that  opposition  is  directed 
almost  solely  against  that  which  annoyed  and  inconvenienced 
him  personally,  for  example,  against  the  stupid  as  well  as  rigor- 
ous Austrian  censorship.  Against  this  bugbear  he  never  ceases 
to  storm  in  verse  and  letters,  and  to  it  must  be  attributed  in  a 
large  measure  his  literary  alienation  from  the  land  of  his  adop- 
tion. That  we  must  look  to  his  lyrics  rather  than  to  his  longer 
epic  writings,  in  order  to  discover  the  poet's  deepest  interests,  is 
nowhere  more  clearly  evidenced  than  in  the  following  refer- 
ence to  his  "Savonarola,"  in  a  letter  to  Emilie  Reinbeck  during 
the  progress  of  the  work:  "Savonarola  wirkte  zumeist  als 
Prediger,  darum  muss  ich  in  meinem  Gedicht  ihn  vielfach 
predigen  und  dogmatisieren  lassen,  welches  in  vierfiissigen 
doppeltgereimten  lamben  sehr  schwierig  ist.  Doch  es  freut 
mich,  Dinge  poetisch  durchzusetzen,  an  deren  poetischer 
Darstellbarkeit  wohl  die  meisten  Menschen  verzweifeln.  Auch 
gereicht  es  mir  zu  besonderem  Vergniigen,  mit  diesem  Gedicht 
gegen  den  herrschenden  Geschmack  unseres  Tages  in  Oppo- 
sition zu  treten."^  The  inference  lies  very  near  at  hand  that 
his  opposition  to  the  prevailing  taste  was  after  all  a  secondary 
consideration,  and  that  the  poet's  first  concern  was  to  win  glory 

'  Schlossar:  "Nicolaus  Lenaus  Briefe  an  Emilie  von  Reinbeck,"  Stuttgart,  1896 
(hereafter  quoted  as  "Schlossar"),  p.  98. 


47 

by  accomplishing  something  which  others  would  abandon  as  an 
impossibility.  While  recognizing  the  fact  that  Lenau's 
"Faust"  and  "Don  Juan"  are  largely  autobiographical,  it  is,  I 
think,  obvious  that  an  entirely  adequate  impression  of  his  Welt- 
schm.erz  may  be  gained  from  his  letters  and  lyrics  alone,  in 
which  the  poet's  sincerest  feelings  need  not  be  subordinated  for 
a  moment  to  artistic  purposes  or  demands.  And  nowhere, 
either  in  lyrics  or  letters,  do  we  find  such  spontaneous  out- 
bursts of  patriotic  sentiment  as  greet  us  in  Holderlin's  poems: 

Gliickselig  Suevien,  meine  Mutter!^ 
This  could  not  be  otherwise;  for  was  he  (Lenau)  not  an  Hun- 
garian by  birth,  an  Austrian  by  adoption,  and  in  his  profes- 
sional affiliations  a  German?  Had  his  interests  not  been 
divided  between  Vienna  and  Stuttgart,  and  had  he  not  been 
possessed  with  an  apparently  uncontrollable  restlessness  which 
drove  him  from  place  to  place,  his  patriotic  enthusiasm  would 
naturally  have  turned  to  Austria,  and  the  poetic  expression  of 
his  home  sentiments  would  not  have  been  confined,  perhaps,  to 
the  one  occasion  when  he  had  put  the  broad  Atlantic  between 
himself  and  his  kin.  That  his  brother-in-law  Schurz  should 
wish  to  represent  him  as  a  dyed-in-the-wool  Austrian  is  only 
natural.-  However  this  may  be,  the  poet  does  not  hesitate  to 
state  in  a  letter  to  Emilie  Reinbeck :  "Ein  Hund  in  Schwaben 
hat  mehr  Achtung  fiir  mich  als  ein  Polizeiprasident  in  Oester- 
reich.""  And  although  he  professes  to  have  become  hardened 
to  the  pestering  interference  of  the  authorities,  as  a  matter  of 
fact  it  was  a  constant  source  of  unhappiness  to  him.  "So  aber 
w'ar  mein  Leben  seit  meinem  letzten  Briefe  ein  bestandiger 
Aerger.  Die  verfluchten  Vexationen  der  hiesigen  Censurbe- 
horde  haben  selbst  jetzt  noch  immer  kein  Ende  finden  konnen."* 
Speaking  of  his  hatred  for  the  censorship  law,  he  says :  "Und 
doch  gebiihrt  mein  Hass  noch  immer  viel  weniger  dem  Gesetze 
selbst,  als  denjenigen  legalisierten  Bestien,  die  das  Gesetz  auf 
eine  so  niedertrachtige  Art  handhaben; — und  unsre  Censoren 
stellen  im  Gegensatze  der  pflanzen-  und  fleischfressenden  Tiere 

^Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  260. 
-  Schurz,   Vol.   II,  p.    193. 
^  Schlossar,  p.   109. 
*  Schlossar,  p.   iii. 


48 

die  Klasse  der  geistfressenden  Tiere  dar,  eine  abscheuliche, 
monstrose  Klasse  !"^  Roustan  expresses  the  opinion  that  with 
Lenau  patriotism  occupied  a  secondary  place.^  He  had  too 
many  "native  lands"  to  become  attached  to  any  one  of  them. 

There  is  something  of  a  counterpart  to  Holderhn's  Hellen- 
ism and  championship  of  Greek  liberty  in  Lenau's  espousal  of 
the  Polish  cause.  But  here  again  the  personal  element  is 
strongly  in  evidence.  A  chance  acquaintance,  which  afterward 
became  an  intimate  friendship,  with  Polish  fugitives,  seems  to 
have  been  the  immediate  occasion  of  his  Polenlieder,  so  that 
his  enthusiasm  for  Polish  liberty  must  be  regarded  as  inci- 
dental rather  than  spontaneous.  Needless  to  say  that  with  a 
Greek  cult  such  as  Holderlin's  Lenau  had  no  patience  what- 
ever. "Dass  die  Poesie  den  profanen  Schmutz  wieder  ab- 
waschen  miisse,  den  ihr  Goethe  durch  50  Jahre  mit  klassischer 
Hand  griindlich  einzureiben  bemiiht  war ;  dass  die  Freiheits- 
gedanken,  wie  sie  jetzt  gesungen  werden,  nichts  seien  als  kon- 
ventioneller  Trodel, — davon  haben  nur  wenige  eine  Ahnung."^ 

All  these  considerations  tend  to  convince  us  that  Lenau's 
Weltschmerz  is  after  all  of  a  much  narrower  and  more  personal 
type  than  Holderlin's.  Again  and  again  he  runs  through  the 
gamut  of  his  own  painful  emotions  and  experiences,  diagnosing 
and  dissecting  each  one,  and  always  with  the  same  gloomy 
result.  Consequently  his  Weltschmerz  loses  in  breadth  what 
through  the  depth  of  the  poet's  introspection  it  gains  in  in- 
tensity. 

One  of  the  most  striking  and,  unless  classed  among  his 
numerous  other  pathological  traits,  one  of  the  most  puzzling 
of  Lenau's  characteristics  is  the  perverseness  of  his  nature. 
His  intimate  friends  were  wont  to  explain  it,  or  rather  to  leave 
it  unexplained  by  calling  it  his  "Husarenlaune"  when  the  poet 
would  give  vent  to  an  apparently  unprovoked  and  unreason- 
able burst  of  anger,  and  on  seeing  the  consternation  of  those 
present,  would  just  as  suddenly  throw  himself  into  a  fit  of 
laughter  quite  as  inexplicable  as  his  rage.     He  takes  delight 

*  Schlossar,  p.   112  f. 

2  "Lenau  et  son  Temps,"  Paris,  1898,  p.  351. 

*  Schlossar,  p.   103. 


49 

in  things  which  in  the  ordinarily  constructed  mind  would 
produce  just  the  reverse  feeling.  Speaking  once  of  a  particu- 
larly ill-favored  person  of  his  acquaintance  he  says :  "Eine  so 
gewaltige  Hasslichkeit  bleibt  ewig  neu  und  kann  sich  nie  ab- 
niitzen.  Es  ist  was  Frisches  darin,  ich  sehe  sie  gerne."^  And 
in  not  a  few  of  his  poems  we  see  a  certain  predilection  for  the 
gruesome,  the  horrible.  So  in  the  remarkable  figure  employed 
in  "Faust:" 

Die  Traume,  ungelehr'ge  Bestien,  schleichen 

Noch  immer  nach  des  Wahns  verscharrten  Leichen.^ 

This  perverseness  of  disposition  is  in  a  large  measure  accounted 
for  by  the  fact  that  Lenau  was  eternally  at  war  with  himself. 
Speaking  in  the  most  general  way,  Holderlin's  Weltschmerz 
had  its  origin  in  his  conflict  with  the  outer  world,  Lenau's  on 
the  other  hand  must  be  attributed  mainly  to  the  unceasing  con- 
flict or  "Zwiespalt"  within  his  breast.  In  his  childhood  a 
devout  Roman  Catholic,  he  shows  in  his  "Faust"  (1833-36)  a 
mind  filled  with  scepticism  and  pantheistic  ideas ;  "Savonarola" 
(1837)  marks  his  return  to  and  glorification  of  the  Christian 
faith;  while  in  the  "Albigenser"  (1838-42)  the  poet  again 
champions  complete  emancipation  of  thought  and  belief.  Only 
a  few  months  elapsed  between  the  writing  of  the  two  poems 
"Wanderung  im  Gebirge"  (1830),  in  which  the  most  orthodox 
faith  in  a  personal  God  is  expressed,  and  "Die  Zweifler" 
(1831).  The  only  consistent  feature  of  his  poems  is  their 
profound  melancholy.  But  Lenau's  inner  struggle  of  soul  did 
not  consist  merely  in  his  vacillating  between  religious  faith 
and  doubt ;  it  was  the  conflict  of  instinct  with  reason.  This  is 
evident  in  his  relations  with  Sophie  Lowenthal.  He  knows 
that  their  love  is  an  unequal  one^  and  chides  her  for  her  cold- 
ness,* warning  her  not  to  humiliate  him,  not  even  in  jest  f  he 
knows  too  that  his  alternating  moods  of  exaltation  and  dejec- 
tion resulting  from  the  intensity  of  his  unsatisfied  love  are  de- 

^  Schlossar,  p.  154. 
^Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.   183. 
^  Frankl,  p.   99. 
*  Frankl,  p.   90. 
"  Frankl,  p.  90. 


50 

stroving-  him.^  "Oetter  hat  sich  der  Gedanke  bei  mir  ange- 
meldet:  Entschlage  dich  dieser  Abhangigkeit  und  gestatte 
diesem  Weibe  keinen  so  machtigen  Einfluss  auf  deine  Stim- 
mungen.  Kein  Mensch  auf  Erden  soil  dich  so  beherrschen. 
Doch  bald  stiess  ich  diesen  Gedanken  wieder  zuriick  als  einen 
Verrater  an  meiner  Liebe,  und  ich  bot  mein  reizbares  Herz 
wieder  gerne  dar  Deinen  zartlichen  Misshandlungen. — O  ge- 
liebtes  Herz !  missbrauche  Deine  Gewalt  nicht !  Ich  bitte  Dich, 
liebe  Sophie  !"^  And  yet,  in  spite  of  it  all,  he  is  unable  to 
free  himself  from  the  thrall  of  passion :  "Wie  wird  doch  all 
mein  Trotz  und  Stolz  so  gar  zu  nichte,  wenn  die  Furcht  in  mir 
erwacht,  dass  Du  mich  weniger  liebest"  f  and  all  this  from  the 
same  pen  that  once  wrote:  "das  Wort  Gnade  hat  ein  Schuft 
erfunden."* 

But  just  as  helpless  as  this  defiant  pride  proved  before  his 
all-consuming  love  for  Sophie,  so  strongly  did  it  assert  itself 
in  all  his  other  relations  with  men  and  things.  A  hasty  word 
from  one  of  his  best  friends  could  so  deeply  offend  his  spirit 
that,  according  to  his  own  admission,  all  subsequent  apologies 
were  futile/^  For  Lenau,  then,  such  an  attitude  of  hero- 
worship  as  that  assumed  by  Holderlin  towards  Schiller,  would 
have  been  an  utter  impossibility.  We  have  already  seen  the 
extent  to  which  he  was  over-awed  (?)  by  Goethe's  views  when 
they  were  at  variance  with  their  own.®  On  another  occasion  he 
writes :  "Was  Goethe  iiber  Ruysdael  faselt,  kannte  ich 
bereits."^  Toward  his  critics  his  bearing  was  that  of  haughty 
indifference :  "Mag  auch  das  Talent  dieser  Menchen,  mich 
zu  insultieren,  gross  sein,  mein  Talent,  sie  zu  verachten,  ist  auf 
alle  Falle  grosser."*  When  his  Friihlingsalmanach  of  1835 
had  been  received  with  disfavor  by  the  critics,  he  professed  to 
be  concerned  only  for  his  publisher :  "Ich  meinerseits  habe 
auf  Liebe  und  Dank  nie  gezahlt  bei  meinen  Bestrebungen."^ 

1  Frankl,  p.   192. 
-  Frankl,  p.   173. 

*  Frankl,  p.   103. 

*  Schlossar,  p.  55. 

^  Cf.  Schlossar,  p.  93  f. 
'  Cf.  supra,  p.  48. 
'^  Schlossar,  p.  46. 

*  Schlossar,  p.  85. 

*  Schlossar,  p.  83. 


51 

"Die  (Recensenten)  wissen  den  Teufel  von  Poesie."^  Whether 
this  real  or  assumed  nonchalance  would  have  stood  the  test  of 
literary  disappointments  such  as  Holderlin's,  it  is  needless  to 
speculate. 

Holderlin  eagerly  sought  after  happiness  and  contentment, 
but  fortune  eluded  him  at  every  turn.  Lenau  on  the  contrary 
thrust  it  from  him  with  true  ascetic  spirit. 

The  mere  thought  of  submitting  to  the  ordinary  process  of 
negotiations  and  recommendations  for  a  vacant  professorship 
of  Esthetics  in  Vienna  is  so  repulsive  to  his  pride,  that  the 
whole  matter  is  at  once  allowed  to  drop,  notwithstanding  that 
he  has  been  preparing  for  the  place  by  diligent  philosophical 
studies.^  The  asceticism  with  which  he  regarded  life  in  gen- 
eral is  expressed  in  a  letter  to  Emilie  Reinbeck,  1843,  ^^  which 
he  says:  "Wer  die  Welt  gestalten  helfen  will,  muss  darauf 
verzichten,  sie  zu  geniessen."^  But  more  often  this  resigna- 
tion becomes  a  defiant  challenge:  'Teh  habe  dem  Leben  ge- 
geniiber  nun  einmal  meine  Stellung  genommen,  es  soli  mich 
nicht  hinunterkriegen.  Dass  mein  Widerstand  nicht  der  eines 
ruhigen  Weisen  ist,  sondern  viel  Trotziges  an  sich  hat,  das 
liegt  in  meinen  Temperament."" 

Another  characteristic  diflference  between  Lenau's  Welt- 
schmerz  and  Holderlin's  lies  in  the  fact  that  the  writings  of  the 
latter  do  not  exhibit  that  absolute  and  abject  despair  which 
marks  Lenau's  lyrics.  Typical  for  both  poets  are  the  lines 
addressed  by  each  to  a  rose : 

Ewig  tragt  im  Mutterschosse, 
Siisse  Konigin  der  Flur, 
Dich  und  mich  die  stille,  grosse, 
Allbelebende  Natur. 

Roschen  unset  Schmuck  veraltet, 
Sturm  entblattert  dich  und  mich, 
Doch  der  ew'ge  Keim  entfaltet 
Bald  zu  neuer  Bliite  sich  P 

1  Schurz,  Vol.  I,  p.   176. 

*  Cf.   Schlossar,  p.    173. 
'  Schlossar,  p.  184. 

*  Schlossar,  p.  87. 

"Holderlin,  "An  eine  Rose,"  Werke,  Vol.   I,  p.   142. 


52 

Unmistakable  as  is  the  melancholy  strain  of  these  verses,  they 
are  not  without  a  hopeful  afterthought,  in  which  the  poet  turns 
from  self-contemplation  to  a  view  of  a  larger  destiny.  Not  so 
in  Lenau's  poem,  "Welke  Rosen"  : 

In  einem  Buche  blatternd,  fand 

Ich  eine  Rose  welk,  zerdriickt, 

Und  weiss  auch  nicht  mehr,  wessen  Hand 

Sie  einst  fiir  mich  gepfliickt. 

Ach  mehr  und  mehr  ini  Abendhauch 
Verweht  Erinn'rung;  bald  zerstiebt 
Main  Erdenlos;  dann  weiss  ich  auch 
Nicht  mehr,  wer  mich  geliebt.^ 

The  intensely  personal  note  of  the  last  stanza  is  in  marked  con- 
trast with  the  corresponding  stanza  of  Holderlin's  poem  just 
quoted.  Further  evidence  that  Lenau's  Weltschmerz  was  con- 
stitutional, while  Holderlin's  was  the  result  of  experience,  lies 
in  this  very  fact,  that  nowhere  do  the  writings  of  the  former 
exhibit  that  stage  of  buoyant  expectation,  youthful  enthusiasm, 
or  hopeful  striving,  which  we  find  in  some  of  the  earlier  poems 
of  the  latter.  In  Holderlin's  ode  "An  die  Hoffnung,"  he  apos- 
trophizes hope  as  "Holde !  giitig  Geschaftige  !" 

Die  du  das  Haus  der  Trauernden  nicht  verschmahst.^ 
Lenau,  in  his  poem  of  the  same  title,  tells  us  he  has  done  with 
hope: 

All  dein  Wort  ist  Windesfacheln; 

Hoffnung!  dann  nur  trau'  ich  dir, 

Weisest  du  mit  Trosteslacheln 

Mir  des  Todes  Nachtrevier.^ 

Even  his  Faust  gives  himself  over  almost  from  the  outset  to 
abject  despair. 

Logically  consequent  upon  this  state  of  mind  is  the  poet's 
oft-repeated  longing  for  death.  The  persistency  of  this 
thought  may  be  best  illustrated  by  a  few  quotations  from 
poems  and  letters,  arranged  chronologically : 

1831.     Mir   wird   oft   so   schwer,   als   ob   ich   einen   Todten  in  mir 
herumtriige/ 

^  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  389. 

^  Holderlins  Werke,  \'ol.   I,  p.  253. 

^  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  99. 

*  Schurz,  Vol.   I,  p.    132. 


53 

l833-  Und  mir  verging  die  Jugend  traurig, 

Des  FriJhlings  Wonne  blieb  versaumt, 
Der  Herbst  durchweht  mich  trennungsschaurig, 
Mein  Herz  dem  Tod  entgegentraumt/ 
1837.     Heute  dachte  ich  ofter  an  den  Tod,  nicht  mit  bitterem  Trotz 
und   storrischem   Verlangen,    sondern    mit   freundlichem   Ap- 
petit." 

1837.  Soil   ich    Dir   alles    sagen?    Wisse,    dass    ich    wirklich    daran 

dachte,  mir  den  Tod  zu  geben.' 

1838.  Der  Gedanke  des  Todes  wird  mir  immer  freundlicher,  und  ich 

verschwende  mein  Leben  gerne.* 
1838.  Durchs  Fenster  kommt  ein  diirres  Blatt 

Vom  Wind  hereingetrieben; 
Dies  leichte  offne  Brieflein  hat 
Der  Tod  an  mich  geschrieben.^ 
1840.     Oft  will  mich's   gemahnen,   als  hatte  ich   auf  Erden  nichts 
mehr  zu  thun,  und  ich  wiinschte  dann,  Gervinus  mochte 
recht  haben,  indem  er,  wie  Georg  mir  erzahlte,  mir  einen 
baldigen  Zusammenbruch  und  Tod  prophezeite. 

1842.  Ich   habe   ein   wollustiges    Heimweh,   in   Deinen   Armen   zu 

sterben/ 

1843.  Selig  sind  die  Betaubten !  noch  seliger  sind  die  Toten!* 

1844.  In  dieses  Waldes  leisem  Rauschen 
1st  mir,  als  hor'  ich  Kunde  wehen, 
Dass  alles  Sterben  und  Vergehen 
Nur  heimlichstill  vergniigtes  Tauschen.^ 

If  we  should  seek  for  the  Leit-motif  of  Lenau's  Weltschmerz, 
we  should  unquestionably  have  to  designate  it  as  the  transient- 
ncss  of  life.     Thus  in  the  poem  "Die  Zweifler,"  he  exclaims : 

Verganglichkeit!  wie  rauschen  deine  Wellen 
Durch's  weite  Labyrinth  des  Lebens  fort!" 

Ten  per  cent,  of  all  Lenau's  lyrics  bear  titles  which  directly  ex- 
press or  suggest  this  thought,  as  for  example,  "Vergangen- 
heit,"  "Verganglichkeit,"  "Das  tote  Gliick,"  "Einst  und  Jetzt," 

iWerke,  Vol.   I.  p.  82. 

^  Frankl,  p.   79. 

^  Frankl,  p.    102. 

*  Frankl,  p.   127. 

^  Werke,  Vol.   I,   p.   267. 

^  Schlossar,  p.    144. 

■^  Frankl,  p.    169. 

^  Schlossar,  p.   188. 

"Werke,  Vol.   I,  p.   405. 

'"  Werke,  \'ol.   I,  p.   130. 


54 

"Aus!,"  "Eitel  Nichts,"  "Verlorenes  Gliick,"  "Welke  Rose," 
"Vanitas,"  "Scheiden,"  "Scheideblick,"  and  the  like;  while  in 
not  less  than  seventy-one  per  cent,  of  his  lyrics  there  are  al- 
lusions, more  or  less  direct,  to  this  same  idea,  which  shows 
beyond  a  doubt  how  large  a  component  it  must  have  been  of 
the  poet's  characteristic  mood. 

If  Holderlin,  the  idealist,  judges  the  things  which  are,  ac- 
cording to  his  standard  of  things  as  they  ought  to  he,  Lenau, 
on  the  other  hand,  measures  them  by  the  things  which  have 
been. 

Friedhof  der  entschlafnen  Tage, 

Schweigende  Vergangenheit! 

Du  begrabst  des  Herzens  Klage, 

Ach,  und  seine  Seligkeit !' 

Nowhere  is  this  mental  attitude  of  the  poet  toward  life  in  all 
its  forms  more  clearly  defined  than  in  his  views  of  nature. 
That  this  is  an  entirely  different  one  from  Holderlin's  goes 
without  saying.  Lenau  has  nothing  of  that  naive  and  un- 
sophisticated childlike  nature-sense  which  Holderlin  possessed, 
and  which  enabled  him  to  find  comfort  and  consolation  in 
nature  as  in  a  mother's  embrace.  So  that  while  for  Holderlin 
intercourse  with  nature  afforded  the  greatest  relief  from  his 
sorrows,  Lenau's  Weltschmerz  was  on  the  contrary  intensified 
thereby.  For  him  the  rose  has  no  fragrance,  the  sunlight  no 
warmth,  springtime  no  charms,  in  a  word,  nature  has  neither 
tone  nor  temper,  until  such  has  been  assigned  to  it  by  the  poet 
himself.  And  as  he  is  fully  aware  of  the  artistic  possibilities 
of  the  mantle  of  melancholy  "um  die  wunde  Brust  geschlun- 
gen,"2  it  follows  consistently  that  he  should  select  for  poetic 
treatment  only  those  aspects  of  nature  which  might  serve  to 
intensify  the  expression  of  his  grief. 

Among  the  titles  of  Lenau's  lyrics  descriptive  of  nature  are 
"Herbst,"  "Herbstgefiihl"  (twice),  "Herbstlied,"  "Ein  Herbst- 
abend,"  "Herbstentschluss,"  "Herbstklage,"  and  many  others 
of  a  similar  kind,  such  as  "Das  diirre  Blatt,"  "In  der  Wiiste," 
"Friihlings  Tod,"  etc.      If  we  disregard  a  few  quite  excep- 

^Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  62. 
*  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  102. 


55 

tional  verses  on  spring,  the  statement  will  hold  that  Lenau  sees 
in  nature  only  the  seasons  and  phenomena  of  dissolution  and 
decay.     So  in  "Herbstlied"  : 

Ja,  ja,  ihr  lauten  Raben, 
Hoch  in  der  kiihlen  Luft, 
's  geht  wieder  ans  Begraben, 
Ihr  flattert  urn  die  Gruft  P 

"Je  mehr  man  sich  an  die  Natur  anschliesst,"  the  poet  writes 
to  Sophie  Schwab,  "je  mehr  man  sich  in  Betrachtungen  ihrer 
Ziige  vertieft,  desto  mehr  wird  man  ergriffen  von  dem  Geiste 
der  Sehnsucht,  des  schwermiitigen  Hinsterbens,  der  durch  die 
Natur  auf  Erden  weht."-  Characteristic  is  the  setting  which 
the  poet  gives  to  the  "Waldkapelle"  : 

Der  dunkle  Wald  umrauscht  den  Wiesengrund, 
Gar  duster  liegt  der  graue  Berg  dahinter, 
Das  diirre  Laub,  der  Windhauch  gibt  cs  kund. 
Geschritten  kommt  allmahlig  schon  der  Winter. 

Die  Sonne  ging,  umhiillt  von  Wolken  dicht, 
Unfreundlich,  ohne  Scheideblick  von  hinnen, 
Und  die  Natur  verstummt,  im  Dammerlicht 
Schwerniiitig  ihrem  Tode  nachzusinnen.^ 

The  sunset  is  represented  as  a  dying  of  the  sun,  the  leaves  fall 
sobbing  from  the  trees,  the  clouds  are  dissolved  in  tears,  the 
wind  is  described  as  a  murderer.  We  see  then  that  Lenau's 
treatment  of  nature  is  essentially  different  from  Holderlin's. 
The  latter  explains  man  through  nature ;  Lenau  explains  nature 
through  man.  Holderlin  describes  love  as  a  heavenly  plant,* 
youth  as  the  springtime  of  the  heart,^  tears  as  the  dew  of 
love  f  Lenau,  on  the  other  hand,  characterizes  rain  as  the  tears 
of  heaven,  for  him  the  woods  are  glad,^  the  brooklet  weeps,* 
the  air  is  idle,  the  buds  and  blossoms  listen,''  the  forest  in  its 

1  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  299. 

2  Cf.  Farinelli,  in  Verhandlungen  des  8.  deutschen  Neuphilologentages,  Hannover. 
1898,  p.  58. 

3  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  137. 
*H61d.  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.   167. 
"Hold.  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.   143. 
«H61d.  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.   140. 
^Len.  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  258. 

*  Len.  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  250. 
"  Len.  Werke,  V&l.   I,  p.  260. 


56 

autumn  foliage  is  "herbstlich  gerotet,  so  wie  ein  Kranker,  der 
sich  neigt  zum  Sterben,  wenn  fliichtig  noch  sich  seine  Wangen 
farben."^  A  remarkable  simile,  and  at  the  same  time  char- 
acteristic for  Lenau  in  its  morbidness  is  the  following : 

Wie  auf  dem  Lager  sich  der  Seelenkranke, 
Wirft  sich  der  Strauch  im  Winde  hin  und  her.^ 

Holderlin  speaks  of  a  friend's  bereavement  as  "ein  schwarzer 
Sturm"  f  when  he  had  grieved  Diotima  he  compares  himself 
to  the  cloud  passing  over  the  serene  face  of  the  moon  ;*  gloomy 
thoughts  he  designates  by  the  common  metaphor  "der  Schatten 
eines  Wolkchens  auf  der  Stirne."^  Lenau  turns  the  compari- 
son and  says : 

Am  Himmelsantlitz  wandelt  ein  Gedanke, 
Die  diistre  Wolke  dort,  so  bang,  so  schwer.' 

Where  Holderlin  finds  delight  in  the  incorporeal  elements 
of  nature,  such  as  light,  ether,  and  ascribes  personal  qualities  and 
functions  to  them,  Lenau  on  the  contrary  always  chooses  the 
tangible  things  and  invests  them  with  such  mental  and  moral 
attributes  as  are  in  harmony  with  his  gloomy  state  of  mind. 
Consequently  Lenau's  Weltschmerz  never  remains  abstract ; 
indeed,  the  almost  endless  variety  of  concrete  pictures  in  which 
he  gives  it  expression  is  nothing  short  of  remarkable,  not  only 
in  the  sympathetic  nature-setting  which  he  gives  to  his  lamen- 
tations, but  also  in  the  striking  metaphors  which  he  employs. 
Of  the  former,  probably  no  better  illustration  could  be  found 
in  all  Lenau's  poems  than  his  well-known  "Schilflieder"^  and 
his  numerous  songs  to  Autumn.  One  or  two  examples  of  his 
incomparable  use  of  nature-metaphors  in  the  expression  of 
his  Weltschmerz  will  suffice : 

1  Len.  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  249. 
^  Len.  Werke,  Vol.   I,  p.   147. 
'  Hold.  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.   144. 
*H61d.  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.   164. 
=  H61d.  Werke,  Vol.   II,  p.   117. 
*  Len.  Werke,  Vol.   I,  p.   147. 
^  Werke,  Vol.   I,  p.  51  f. 


57 

Hab'  ich  gleich,  als  ich  so  sacht 
Durch  die  Stoppein  hingeschritten, 
Aller  Sensen  auch  gedacht, 
Die  ins  Leben  mir  geschnitten/ 

Auch  mir  ist  Herbst,  und  leiser 
Trag'  ich  den  Berg  hinab 
Mein  Btindel  diirre  Reiser 
Die  mir  das  Leben  gab.' 

Der  Mond  zieht  traurig  durch  die  Spharen, 
Denn  all  die  Seinen  ruhn  im  Grab; 
Drum  wischt  er  sich  die  hellen  Zahren 
Bei  Nacht  an  unsern  Blumen  ab.^ 

The  forceful  directness  of  Lenau's  metaphors  from  nature  is 
aptly  shown  in  the  following  comparison  of  two  passages,  one 
from  Holderlin's  '"An  die  Natur/'  the  other  from  Lenau's 
"Herbstklage,"  in  which  both  poets  employ  the  same  poetic 
fancy  to  express  the  same  idea. 

Tot  ist  nun,  die  mich  erzog  und  stillte, 
Tot  ist  nun  die  jugendliche  Welt, 
Diese  Brust,  die  einst  ein  Himmel  fiillte, 
Tot  und  diirftig  wie  ein  Stoppelfeld.* 

If  we  compare  the  simile  in  the  last  line  with  the  corresponding 
metaphor  used  by  Lenau  in  the  following  stanza, — 

Wie  der  Wind  zu  Herbsteszeit 
Mordend  hinsaust  in  den  Waldern, 
Weht  mir  die  Vergangenheit 
Von  des  Gliickes  Stoppelfeldern,^ 

the  greater  artistic  effectiveness  of  the  latter  figure  will  be  at 
once  apparent. 

The  idea  that  nature  is  cruel,  even  murderous,  as  suggested 
in  the  opening  lines  of  the  stanza  just  quoted,  seems  in  the 
course  of  time  to  have  become  firmly  fixed  in  the  poet's  mind,  for 
he  not  only  uses  it  for  poetic  purposes,  but  expresses  his  con- 
viction of  the  fact  on  several  occasions  in  his  conversations  and 
letters.     Tossing  some  dead  leaves  with  his  stick  while  out 

*  "Der  Kranich,"  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  328. 

*  "Herbstlied,"  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  299. 
'  "Mondlied,"  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  310. 
*H61d.  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  146. 

"  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  299. 


58 

walking,  he  is  said  to  have  exclaimed :  "Da  seht,  und  dann 
heisst  es,  die  Natur  sei  liebevoll  und  schonend !  Nein,  sie  ist 
grausam,  sie  hat  kein  Mitleid.  Die  Natur  ist  erbarmungslos  !"^ 
It  goes  without  saying  that  in  such  a  conception  of  nature  the 
poet  could  find  no  amelioration  of  his  Weltschmerz.- 

In  summing  up  the  results  of  our  discussion  of  Lenau's 
Weltschmerz,  it  would  involve  too  much  repetition  to  mention 
all  the  points  in  which  it  stands,  as  we  have  seen,  in  striking 
contrast  to  that  of  Holderlin.  Suffice  it  to  recall  only  the  most 
essential  features  of  the  comparison :  the  predominance  of 
hereditary  and  pathological  traits  as  causative  influences  in 
the  case  of  Lenau  ;  the  fact  that  whereas  Holderlin's  quarrel  was 
largely  with  the  world,  Lenau's  was  chiefly  within  himself ;  the 
passive  and  ascetic  nature  of  Lenau's  attitude,  as  compared 
with  the  often  hopeful  striving  of  Holderlin ;  the  patriotism  of 
the  latter,  and  the  relative  indifference  of  the  former;  Lenau's 
strongly  developed  erotic  instinct,  which  gave  to  his  relations 
with  Sophie  such  a  vastly  different  influence  upon  his  Welt- 
schmerz from  that  exerted  upon  Holderlin  by  his  relations  with 
Diotima ;  and  finally  the  marked  difference  in  the  attitude  of 
these  two  poets  toward  nature. 

A  careful  consideration  of  all  the  points  involved  will  lead  to 
no  other  conclusion  than  that  whereas  in  Holderlin  the  cosmic 
element  predominates,  Lenau  stands  as  a  type  of  egoistic  Welt- 
schmerz. To  quote  from  our  classification  attempted  in  the 
first  chapter,  he  is  one  of  "those  introspective  natures  who 
are  first  and  chiefly  aware  of  their  own  misery,  and  finally  come 
to  regard  it  as  representative  of  universal  evil."  Nowhere  is 
this  more  clearly  stated  than  in  the  poet's  own  words :  "Es 
hat  etwas  Trostliches  fiir  mich,  wenn  ich  in  meinem  Privatun- 
gliick  den  Familienzug  lese,  der  durch  alle  Geschlechter  der 
armen  Menschen  geht.  Mein  Ungliick  ist  mir  mein  Liebstes, — 
und  ich  betrachte  es  gerne  im  verklarenden  Lichte  eines  allge- 
meinen  Verhangnisses."^ 

^  Schurz,   Vol.    II,  p.    104. 

"  For  an  exhaustive  discussion  of  Lenau's  nature-sense  cf.  Prof.  Camillo  von 
Klenze's  excellent  monograph  on  the  subject,  "The  Treatment  of  Nature  in  the 
Works  of  Nikolaus  Lenau,"  Chicago,  University  Press,  1902. 

*  Frankl,  p.  116. 


CHAPTER  IV 

Heine 

Heine  was  probably  the  first  German  writer  to  use  the  term 
Weltschmerz  in  its  present  sense.  Breitinger  in  his  essay 
"Neues  iiber  den  alten  Weltschmerz"^  endeavors  to  trace  the 
earliest  use  of  the  word  and  finds  an  instance  of  it  in  Julian 
Schmidt's  "Geschichte  der  Romantik,"-  1847.  He  seems  to 
have  entirely  overlooked  Heine's  use  of  the  word  in  his  discus- 
sion of  Delaroche's  painting  "Oliver  Cromwell  before  the  body 
of  Charles  I."  (1831).^  The  actual  inventor  of  the  compound 
was  no  doubt  Jean  Paul,  who  wrote  (1810)  :  "Diesen  Welt- 
schmerz kann  er  (Gott)  sozusagen  nur  aushalten  durch  den 
Anblick  der  Seligkeit,  die  nachher  vergiitet."* 

But  although  Heine  may  have  been  the  first  to  adapt  the  word 
to  its  present  use,  and  although  we  have  fallen  into  the  habit 
of  thinking  of  him  as  the  chief  representative  of  German  Welt- 
schmerz, it  must  be  admitted  that  there  is  much  less  genuine 
Weltschmerz  to  be  found  in  his  poems  than  in  those  of  either 
Holderlin  or  Lenau.  The  reason  for  this  has  already  been 
briefly  indicated  in  the  preceding  chapter.  Holderlin's  Welt- 
schmerz is  altogether  the  most  naive  of  the  three ;  Lenau's, 
while  it  still  remains  sincere,  becomes  self-conscious,  while 
Heine  has  an  unfailing  antidote  for  profound  feeling  in  his 
merciless  self-irony.  And  yet  his  condition  in  life  was  such  as 
would  have  wrung  from  the  heart  of  almost  any  other  poet 
notes  of  sincerest  pathos. 

In  Lenau's  case  we  noted  circumstances  which  point  to  a 

^  "Studien  und  Wandertage,"  Frauenfeld,  Huber,  1884. 

-  Vol.   II,  p.  265. 

5  "Franzosische  Maler.  Gemalde-Ausstellung  in  Paris,  183 1."  Heines  Sammtliche 
Werke,  mit  Einleitung  von  E.  Elster.  Leipzig,  Bibliogr.  Inst.,  1890.  (Hereafter 
quoted  as  "Werke.")     Vol.  IV,  p.  61. 

*  "Selina,  oder  iiber  die  Unsterblichkeit,"  II,  p.   132. 

59 


60 

direct  transmission  from  parent  to  child  of  a  predisposition  to 
melancholia.  In  Heine's,  on  the  other  hand,  the  question  of 
heredity  has  apparently  only  an  indirect  bearing  upon  his 
Weltschmerz.  To  what  extent  was  his  long  and  terrible  dis- 
ease of  hereditary  origin,  and  in  what  measure  may  we  ascribe 
his  Weltschmerz  to  the  sufferings  which  that  disease  caused 
him?  The  first  of  these  questions  has  been  answered  as  con- 
clusively as  seems  possible  on  the  basis  of  all  available  data,  by 
a  doctor  of  medicine,  S.  Rahmer,  in  what  is  at  this  time  the 
most  recent  and  most  authoritative  study  that  has  been  pub- 
lished on  the  subject.^  Stage  by  stage  he  follows  the  develop- 
ment of  the  disease,  from  its  earliest  indications  in  the  poet's 
incessant  nervous  headaches,  which  he  ascribes  to  neurasthenic 
causes.  He  attempts  to  quote  all  the  passages  in  Heine's  let- 
ters which  throw  light  upon  his  physical  condition,  and  points 
out  that  in  the  second  stage  of  the  disease  the  first  symptoms 
of  paralysis  made  their  appearance  as  early  as  1832,  and  not 
in  1837  as  the  biographers  have  stated.  To  this  was  added  in 
1837  an  acute  affection  of  the  eyes,  which  continued  to  recur 
from  this  time  on.  In  addition  to  the  pathological  process 
which  led  to  a  complete  paralysis  of  almost  the  whole  body, 
Rahmer  notes  other  symptoms  first  mentioned  in  1846,  which 
he  describes  as  "bulbar"  in  their  origin,  such  as  difficulty  in 
controlling  the  muscles  of  speech,  difficulty  in  chewing  and 
swallowing,  the  enfeebling  of  the  muscles  of  the  lips,  disturb- 
ances in  the  functions  of  the  glottis  and  larynx,  together  with 
abnormal  secretion  of  saliva.  He  discredits  altogether  the 
diagnosis  of  Heine's  disease  as  consumption  of  the  spinal  mar- 
row, to  which  Klein-Hattingen  in  his  recent  book  on  Holderlin, 
Lenau  and  Heine-  still  adheres,  dismisses  as  scientifically  unten- 
able the  popular  idea  that  the  poet's  physical  dissolution  was 
the  result  of  his  sensual  excesses,  finally  diagnoses  the  case  as 
"die  spinale  Form  der  progressiven  Muskelatrophie"^  and  main- 
tains that  it  was  either  directly  inherited,  or  at  least  developed  on 

^  "Heinrich   Heines    Krankheit   und    Leidensgeschichte."     Eine   kritische    Studie, 
von  S.  Rahmer,  Dr.   Med.,  Berlin,   1901. 

^  "Das  Liebesleben  Holderlin's,  Lenaus,  Heines."    Berlin,  1901. 
'  Rahmer,  op.  cit.  p.  45. 


61 

the  basis  of  an  inherited  disposition.^  He  finds  further  evidence 
in  support  of  the  latter  theory  in  the  fact  that  the  first  symptoms 
of  the  disease  made  their  appearance  in  early  youth,  not  many 
years  after  puberty,  and  concludes  that,  in  spite  of  scant  infor- 
mation as  to  Heine's  ancestors,  we  are  safe  in  assuming  a  heredi- 
tary taint  on  the  father's  side. 

The  poet  himself  evidently  wouM  have  us  believe  as  much, 
for  in  his  Reisebilder  he  says :  "Wie  ein  Wurm  nagte  das 
Elend  in  meinem  Herzen  und  nagte, — ich  habe  dieses  Elend 
mit  mir  zur  Welt  gebracht.  Es  lag  schon  mit  mir  in  der  Wiege, 
und  wenn  meine  Mutter  mich  wiegte,  so  wiegte  sie  es  mit,  und 
wenn  sie  mich  in  den  Schlaf  sang,  so  schlief  es  mit  mir  ein,  und 
es  erwachte,  sobald  ich  wieder  die  Augen  aufschlug.  Als  ich 
grosser  wurde,  wuchs  auch  das  Elend,  und  wurde  endlich  ganz 
gross  und  zersprengte  mein.  .  .  .  Wir  wollen  von  andern  Dingen 
sprechen.  .  .  .''- 

And  yet  Heine's  disposition  was  not  naturally  inclined  to 
hypochondria.  In  his  earlier  letters,  especially  to  his  intimate 
friends,  there  is  often  more  than  cheerfulness,  sometimes  a 
decided  buoyancy  if  not  exuberance  of  spirits.  A  typical 
instance  we  find  in  a  letter  to  Moser  (1824)  :  "Ich  hofife  Dich 
wohl  nachstes  Friihjahr  wiederzusehen  und  zu  umarmen  und 
zu  necken  und  vergniigt  zu  sein."^  Only  here  and  there,  but 
very  rarely,  does  he  acknowledge  any  influence  of  his  physical 
condition  upon  his  mental  labors.  To  Immermann  he  writes 
(1823)  :  "Mein  Unwohlsein  mag  meinen  letzten  Dichtungen 
auch  etwas  Krankhaftes  mitgeteilt  haben."'*  And  to  Merkel 
(1827)  :  "Ach !  ich  bin  heute  sehr  verdriesslich.  Krank  und 
unfahig,  gesund  aufzufassen."^  In  the  main,  however,  he 
makes  a  very  brave  appearance  of  cheerfulness,  and  especially 
of  patience,  which  seems  to  grow  with  the  hopelessness  of  his 
affliction.  To  his  mother  (1851)  :  'Teh  befinde  mich  wieder 
krankhaft  gestimmt,  etwas  wohler  wie  friiher,  vielleicht  viel 
wohler;  aber  grosse  Nervenschmerzen  habe  ich  noch  immer, 

^  Rahmer,  p.   46. 

^Werke,  Vol.  Ill,  p.   194- 

^Karpeles  ed.  Werke   (2.  Aufl.)   VIII,  p.  441. 

*Ibid.,  p.  378. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  520. 


62 

und  leider  ziehen  sich  die  Krampfe  jetzt  ofter  nach  oben,  was 
mir  den  Kopf  zmveilen  sehr  erniiidet.  So  muss  ich  nun  ruhig 
aushalten,  was  der  liebe  Gott  iiber  mich  verhangt,  und  ich  trage 
mein  Schicksal  mit  Geduld.  .  .  .  Gottes  Wille  geschehe!"^ 
Again  a  few  weeks  later :  "Ich  habe  mit  diesem  Leben  abge- 
schlossen,  und  wenn  ich  so  sicher  ware,  dass  ich  im  Himmel 
einst  gut  aufgenommen  werde,  so  ertriige  ich  geduldig  meine 
Existenz."^  Not  only  to  his  mother,  whom  for  years  he  affec- 
tionately kept  in  ignorance  of  his  deplorable  condition,  does  he 
write  thus,  but  also  to  Campe  (1852)  :  "Mein  Korper  leidet 
grosse  Oual,  aber  meine  Seele  ist  ruhig  wie  ein  Spiegel  und  hat 
manchmal  auch  noch  ihre  schonen  Sonnenaufgange  und  Son- 
nenuntergange."^  1854:  "Gottlob,  dass  ich  bei  all  meinem 
Leid  sehr  heiteren  Gemiites  bin,  und  die  lustigsten  Gedanken 
springen  mir  durchs  Hirn."*  Much  of  this  sort  of  thing  was  no 
doubt  nicely  calculated  for  effect,  and  yet  these  and  similar  pas- 
sages show  that  he  was  not  inclined  to  magnify  his  physical 
afflictions  either  in  his  own  eyes  or  in  the  eyes  of  others.  Nor  is 
he  absolutely  unreconciled  to  his  fate :  "Es  ist  mir  nichts 
gegliickt  in  dieser  Welt,  aber  es  hatte  mir  doch  noch  schlimmer 
gehen  konnen."^ 

In  his  poems,  references  to  his  physical  sufferings  are  re- 
markably infrequent.  We  look  in  vain  in  the  "Buch  der 
Lieder,"  in  the  "Neue  Gedichte,"  in  fact  in  all  his  lyrics  written 
before  the  "Romanzero,"  not  only  for  any  allusion  to  his  illness, 
but  even  for  any  complaint  against  life  which  might  have  been 
directly  occasioned  by  his  physical  condition.  What  is  there 
then  in  these  earlier  poems  that  might  fitly  be  called  Welt- 
schmerz?     Very  little,  we  shall  find. 

Their  inspiration  is  to  be  found  almost  exclusively  in  Heine's 
love-affairs,  decent  and  indecent.  Now  the  pain  of  disap- 
pointed love  is  the  motive  and  the  theme  of  very  many  of 
Holderlin's  and  Lenau's  lyrics,  poems  which  are  heavy  with 
Weltschmerz,  while  most  of  Heine's  are  not.     To  speak  only 

*  Karpeles  ed.  Werke,  IX,  p.  371. 
'Ibid.,  p.   374. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  459  ff. 

*  Ibid.,  p.   513. 
'  Ibid-,   p.   475. 


63 

of  the  poet's  most  important  attachments,  of  his  unrequited 
love  for  his  cousin  Amalie,  and  his  unsuccessful  wooing  of  her 
sister  Therese, — there  can  be  no  doubt  that  these  unhappy  loves 
brought  years  of  pain  and  bitterness  into  his  life,  sorrow  prob- 
ably as  genuine  as  any  he  ever  experienced,  and  yet  how  little, 
comparatively,  there  is  in  his  poetry  to  convince  us  of  the  fact. 
Nearly  all  these  early  lyrics  are  variations  of  this  love-theme, 
and  yet  it  is  the  exception  rather  than  the  rule  when  the  poet 
maintains  a  sincere  note  long  enough  to  engender  sympathy 
and  carry  conviction.  Such  are  his  beautiful  lyrics  "Ich  grolle 
nicht,"^  "Du  hast  Diamanten  und  Perlen."- 
Let  us  see  how  Lenau  treats  the  same  theme : 

Die  dunklen  Wolken  hingen 
Herab  so  bang  und  schwer, 
Wir  beide  traurig  gingen 
Im  Garten  bin  und  her. 

So  heiss  und  stumm,  so  tritbe, 
Und  sternlos  war  die  Nacht, 
So  ganz  wie  unsre  Liebe 
Zu  Thranen  nur  gemacht. 

Und  als  ich  musste  scheiden 
Und  gute  Nacht  dir  bot, 
Wiinscht'  ich  bekiimmert  beiden 
Im  Herzen  uns  den  Tod.' 

We  believe  implicitly  in  the  poet's  almost  inexpressible  grief, 
and  because  we  are  convinced,  we  sympathize.  And  we  feel 
too  that  the  poet's  sorrow  is  so  overwhelming  and  has  so  filled 
his  soul  that  it  has  entirely  changed  his  views  of  life  and  of 
nature,  or  has  at  least  contributed  materially  to  such  a 
change, — that  it  has  assumed  larger  proportions  and  may 
rightly  be  called  Weltschmerz.  Compare  with  this  the  first 
and  third  stanzas  of  Heine's  "Der  arme  Peter :" 

Der  Hans  und  die  Crete  tanzen  herum, 
Und  jauchzen  vor  lauter  Freude. 
Der  Peter  steht  so  still  und  stumm, 

^  Werke,  Vol.   I,  p.  "jz,  Nos.   i8  and  19. 
*  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  123,  No.  62. 
"  Lenaus  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  257  ff. 


64 

Und  ist  so  blass  wie  Kreide. 

Der  Peter  spricht  leise  vor  sich  her 
Und  schauet  betriibet  auf  beide  : 
"Ach !  wenn  icli  nicht  zu  verniinftig  war', 
Ich  that'  mir  was  zu  leide."^ 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  cite  further  examples  of  this  man- 
nerism of  Heine's,  for  so  it  early  became,  such  as  his  "Erbsen- 
suppe,"-  "Ich  wollte,  er  schosse  mich  tot,"^  "Doktor,  sind  Sie 
des  Teufels; '*  "Madame,  ich  liebe  Sie!"^  and  many  other  glar- 
ing instances  of  the  "Sturzbad,"  in  order  to  show  how  the  poet 
himself  deliberately  attempted,  and  usually  with  success,  to 
destroy  the  traces  of  his  grief.  This  process  of  self-irony, 
which  plays  such  havoc  with  all  sincere  feeling  and  therefore 
with  his  Weltschmerz,  becomes  so  fixed  a  habit  that  we  are 
almost  incapable,  finally,  of  taking  the  poet  seriously.  He 
makes  a  significant  confession  in  this  regard  in  a  letter  to 
Moser  (1823)  :  "Aber  es  geht  mir  oft  so,  ich  kann  meine 
eigenen  Schmerzen  nicht  erzahlen,  ohne  dass  die  Sache 
komisch  wird."''  How  thoroughly  this  mental  attitude  had 
become  second  nature  with  Heine,  may  be  inferred  from  a 
statement  which  he  makes  to  Friederike  Roberts  (1825)  : 
"Das  Ungeheuerste,  das  Ensetzlichste,  das  Schaudervollste, 
wenn  es  nicht  unpoetisch  werden  soil,  kann  man  auch  nur  in 
dem  buntscheckigen  Gewande  des  Lacherlichen  darstellen, 
gleichsam  versohnend — darum  hat  auch  Shakespeare  das 
Grasslichste  im  "Lear"  durch  den  Narren  sagen  lassen,  darum 
hat  auch  Goethe  zu  dem  furchtbarsten  Stoffe,  zum  "Faust,"  die 
Puppenspielform  gewahlt,  darum  hat  auch  der  noch  grossere 
Poet  (der  Urpoet,  sagt  Friederike),  namlich  Unser-Herrgott, 
alien  Schreckensszenen  dieses  Lebens  eine  gute  Dosis  Spass- 
haftigkeit  beigemischt."'^ 

'  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  37. 

''Ibid.,  Vol.   II,  p.   II. 

^Ibid.,  Vol.   I,  p.  97. 

*Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.   177. 

^  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.   197. 

'  Karpeles  ed.  Werke,  VIII,  p.  408. 

''Ibid.,   p.   468. 


65 

In  not  a  few  of  his  lyrics  Heine  gives  us  a  truly  Lenauesque 
nature-setting,  as  for  instance  in  "Der  scheidende  Sommer:" 

Das  gelbe  Laub  erzittert, 
Es  fallen  die  Blatter  herab ; 
Ach,  alles,  was  hold  und  lieblich 
Verwelkt  und  sinkt  ins  Grab.* 

This  is  one  of  the  comparatively  few  instances  in  Heine's 
lyrics  in  which  he  maintains  a  dignified  seriousness  throughout 
the  entire  poem.  It  is  worth  noting,  too,  because  it  touches  a 
note  as  infrequent  in  Heine  as  it  is  persistent  in  Lenau — the 
fleeting  nature  of  all  things  lovely  and  desirable.^  This  is  one 
of  the  characteristic  differences  between  the  two  poets, — 
Heine's  eye  is  on  the  present  and  the  future,  much  more  than 
on  the  past ;  Lenau  is  ever  mourning  the  happiness  that  is  past 
and  gone.  Logically  then,  thoughts  of  and  yearnings  for 
death  are  much  more  frequent  with  Lenau  than  with  Heine.^ 

Reverting  to  the  point  under  consideration :  even  in  those 
love-lyrics  in  which  Heine  does  not  wilfully  destroy  the  first 
serious  impression  by  the  jingling  of  his  harlequin's  cap,  as 
he  himself  styles  it,*  he  does  not  succeed, — with  the  few  excep- 
tions just  referred  to, — in  convincing  us  very  deeply  of  the 
reality  of  his  feelings.  They  are  either  trivially  or  extrava- 
gantly stated.  Sometimes  this  sense  of  triviality  is  caused  by 
the  poet's  excessive  fondness  for  all  sorts  of  diminutive  ex- 
pressions, giving  an  artificial  effect,  an  effect  of  "Tandelei" 
to  his  verses.     For  example : 

Du   siehst  mich  an  wehmiitiglich, 
Und  schiittelst  das  blonde  Kopfchen, 
Aus  deinen  Angen  schleichen  sich 
Die  Perlenthranentropfchen."* 

Sometimes  this  effect  is  produced  by  a  distinct  though  unin- 

^  Karpeles  ed.  W^rke,  Vol.  II,  p.  31. 

*  A  few  other  examples  of  this  same  coloring  in  Heine's  lyrics  are  to  be  found 
in  the  "Neuer  Friihling,"  Nos.  40,  41  and  43. 

'  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  89,  No.  55,  "O  Gott,  wie  hasslich  bitter  ist  das  Sterben!" 
etc. 

*Engel:     "Heine's  Memoiren,"   p.    133. 

»  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  87. 
5 


66 

tended  anti-climax.  Nowhere  has  Heine  struck  a  more  truly- 
elegiac  note  than  in  the  stanza : 

Der  Tod,  das  ist  die  kiihle  Nacht, 
Das  Leben  ist  der  schwiile  Tag. 
Es  dunkelt  schon,  mich  schlafert, 
Der  Tag  hat  mich  niiide  gemacht.^ 

There  is  the  most  profound  Weltschmerz  in  that.  But  in  the 
second  stanza  there  is  relatively  little : 

Ueber  main  Bett  erhebt  sich  ein  Baum, 
Drill  singt   die  junge   Nachtigall; 
Sie  singt  von  lauter  Liebe, 
Ich  hor'  es  sogar  im  Traum. 

Lenau's  lyrics  have  shown  that  much  Weltschmerz  may  grow 
out  of  unsatisfied  love ;  Heine's  demonstrate  that  mere  love- 
sickness  is  not  Weltschmerz.  The  fact  is  that  Heine  fre- 
quently destroys  what  would  have  been  a  certain  impression  of 
Weltschmerz  by  forcing  upon  us  the  immediate  cause  of  his 
distemper, — it  may  be  a  real  injury,  or  merely  a  passing  annoy- 
ance. What  a  strange  mixture  of  acrimonious,  sarcastic  pro- 
test and  Weltschmerz  elements  we  find  in  the  poem  "Ruhelech- 
zend"^  of  which  a  few  stanzas  will  serve  to  illustrate.  Again 
he  strikes  a  full  minor  chord : 

Las  bluten  deine  Wunden,  lass 
Die  Thranen  fliessen  unaufhaltsam ; 
Geheime  Wollust  schwelgt  im  Schmerz, 
Und  Weinen  ist  ein  siisser  Balsam. 

This  in  practice  rather  than  in  theory  is  what  we  observe  in 
Lenau, — his  melancholy  satisfaction  in  nursing  his  grief, — 
and  we  have  promise  of  a  poem  of  genuine  Weltschmerz. 
Even  through  the  second  and  third  stanzas  this  feeling  is  not 
destroyed,  although  the  terms  "Schelm"  and  "Tolpel"  gently 
arouse  our  suspicion : 

Des  Tages  Larm  verhallt,  es  steigt 
Die  Nacht  herab  mit  langen  Flohren. 
In  ihrem  Schosse  wird  kein  Schelm, 
Kein  Tolpel  deine  Ruhe  storen. 

^  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.   134. 
'Ibid.,  Vol.  11,  p.  102. 


67 

But  the  very  next  stanza  brings  the  transition  from  the  subHme 
to  the  ridiculous : 

Hier  bist  du  sicher  vor  Musik, 
Vor  des  Pianofortes  Folter, 
Und  vor  der  grossen  Oper  Pracht 
Und  schrecklichem  Bravourgepolter. 


O  Grab,  du  bist  das  Paradies 
Fiir  pdbelscheue,  z-irte  Ohren — 
Der  Tod  ist  gut,  doch  besser  war's, 
Die  Mutter  hatt'  uns  nie  geboren. 


It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  point  out  that  the  specific  cause 
which  the  poet  confides  to  us  of  his  "wounds,  tears  and  pains" 
is  ridiculously  unimportant  as  compared  with  the  conclusion 
which  he  draws  in  the  last  two  lines. 

Evidently  then,  he  does  not  wish  us  to  take  him  seriously, 
nor  could  we,  if  he  did.  Thus  in  their  very  attitude  toward 
the  ills  and  vexations  of  life,  there  appears  a  most  essential 
difference  between  Lenau  and  Heine.  Auerbach  aptly  re- 
marks :  "Spott  und  Satire  verkleinern,  Zorn  und  Hass  ver- 
grossern  das  Object."^  And  Lenau  knew  no  satire;  where 
Heine  scoffed  and  ridiculed,  he  hated  and  scorned,  with  a 
hatred  that  only  contributed  to  his  own  undoing.  With  Heine 
the  satire's  the  thing,  whether  of  himself  or  of  others,  and  to 
this  he  willingly  sacrifices  the  lofty  sentiments  of  which  he  is 
capable.  Indeed  he  frequently  introduces  these  for  no  other 
purpose  than  to  make  the  laugh  or  grimace  all  the  more  strik- 
ing. And  with  reference  to  his  love  affair  with  Amalie,  while 
the  question  as  to  the  reality  and  depth  of  his  feelings  may  be 
left  entirely  out  of  discussion,  this  much  may  be  safely  asserted, 
that  in  comparatively  few  poems  do  those  feelings  find  expres- 
sion in  the  form  of  Weltschmerz.  Now  there  is  something 
essentially  vague  about  Weltschmerz ;  it  is  an  atmosphere,  a 
"Stimmung"  more  or  less  indefinable,  rather  than  the  state- 
ment in  lyric  form  of  certain  definite  grievances  with  their  par- 
ticular and  definite  causes.  And  that  is  exactly  what  we  find 
in  Lenau,  even  in  his  love-songs.  His  love-sorrow  is  blended 
with  his  many  other  heart-aches,  with  his  disappointments  and 

1  "Nicolaus  Lenau.     Erinnerung  und   Betrachtung."     Wien,    1876. 


68 

regrets,  with  his  yearning  for  death.  He  sings  of  his  pain 
rather  than  of  its  immediate  causes,  and  the  result  is  an  atmos- 
phere of  Weltschmerz. 

Turning  to  Heine's  later  poems,  especially  to  the  "Roman- 
zero,"  we  find  that  atmosphere  much  more  perceptible.  But 
even  here  the  poet  is  for  the  most  part  specific,  and  his  method 
concrete.  So  for  instance  in  "Der  Dichter  Firdusi"^  in  which 
he  tells  a  story  to  illustrate  his  belief  that  merit  is  appreciated 
and  rewarded  only  after  the  death  of  the  one  who  should  have 
reaped  the  reward.  So  also  in  "Weltlauf,"^  the  first  stanza  of 
which  suggests  a  poetic  rendering  of  Matth.  13:12,  "For  who- 
soever hath,  to  him  shall  be  given  and  he  shall  have  more 
abundance ;  but  whosoever  hath  not,  from  him  shall  be  taken 
away  even  that  he  hath," — to  which  the  poet  adds  a  stanza  of 
caustic  ironical  comment : 

Wenn  du  aber  gar  nichts  hast, 
Ach,  so  lasse  dich  begraben — 
Denn  ein  Recht  zum  Leben,  Lump, 
Haben  nur,  die  etwas  haben. 

And  again,  the  poem  " Lumpen tum"^  presents  an  ironical 
eulogy  of  flattery.  His  failure  to  realize  the  hopes  of  his  youth 
is  made  the  subject  of  "Verlorne  Wiinsche"*  which  maintains 
throughout  a  strain  of  seriousness  quite  unusual  for  Heine, 
and  concludes : 

Goldne  Wiinsche  !     Seifenblasen ! 

Sie  zerrinnen  wie  mein  Leben — 

Ach  ich  liege  jetzt  am  Boden, 

Kann  mich  nimmermehr  erheben. 

Und  Ade !  sie  sind  zerronnen, 
Goldne  Wiinsche,  siisses  Hoffen ! 
Ach,  zu  totlich  war  der  Faustschlag, 
Der  mich  just  ins  Herz  getroffen. 

A  number  of  these  lyrics  from  the  Romanzero  show  very 
strikingly  Heine's  objective  treatment  of  his  poems  of  com- 
plaint.    Such  selections  as  "Sie  erlischt,"^  in  which  he  com- 

1  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  367!. 
'Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  415. 
^ Ibid.,  Yol   I,  p.   48. 
*  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  42  f. 
^Ibid.,  Vol.   I,  p.  428. 


69 

pares  his  soul  to  the  last  flicker  of  a  lamp  in  the  darkened 
theater,  or  "Fran  Sorge,"^  which  gives  us  the  personification  of 
care,  represented  as  a  nurse  watching  by  his  bedside,  bring  his 
objective  method  into  marked  contrast  with  Holderlin's  sub- 
jective Weltschmerz.  The  same  may  be  said  of  his  auto- 
biography in  miniature,  "Riickschau,"-  which  catalogues  the 
poet's  experiences,  pleasant  and  adverse,  with  evident  sincerity 
though  of  course  with  a  liberal  admixture  of  witty  irony. 
Needless  to  say  there  is  no  real  Weltschmerz  discoverable  in 
such  a  pot  pourri  as  the  following : 

Die  Glieder  sind  mir  rheumatisch  gelahmt, 
Und  meine  Seele  ist  tief  beschamt. 


Ich  ward  getrankt  mit  Bitternissen, 

Und  grausam  von  den  Wanzen  gebissen,  etc. 

It  would  scarcely  be  profitable  to  attempt  to  estimate  the 
causes  and  development  of  this  self-irony,  which  plays  so  im- 
portant a  part  in  Heine's  poetry.  Its  possibility  lay  no  doubt 
in  his  native  mother-wit,  wnth  its  genial  perception  of  the  in- 
congruous, combined,  it  must  be  admitted,  w'ith  a  relatively 
low  order  of  self-respect.  Its  first  incentive  he  may  have 
found  in  his  unrequited  love  for  Amalie.  Had  it  been  like 
that  of  Holderlin  for  Diotima,  or  Lenau  for  Sophie,  recipro- 
cated though  unsatisfied,  w^e  could  not  easily  imagine  the 
ironical  tone  which  pervades  most  of  his  love-songs.  And  so 
he  uses  it  as  a  veil  for  his  chagrin,  preferring  to  laugh  and 
have  the  world  laugh  wath  him,  rather  than  to  weep  alone. 
But  the  incident  in  Heine's  life  which  probably  more  than 
any  other  experience  fostered  this  habit  of  making  him- 
self the  butt  of  his  witty  irony  was  his  outw^ard  renunciation 
of  Judaism.  Little  need  be  said  concerning  this,  since  the 
details  are  so  w^ell  known.  He  himself  confesses  that  the  step 
was  taken  from  the  lowest  motives,  for  w'hich  he  justly  hated 
and  despised  himself.  To  Moser  he  writes  (1825)  :  'Teh 
w^eiss  nicht,  was  ich  sagen  soil,  Cohen  versichert  mich,  Cans 
predige  das  Christentum  und  suche  die  Kinder  Israels  zu  be- 

1  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  424. 
-  Ibid..  \'ol.    I,  p.   416. 


70 

kehren.  Thut  er  dieses  aus  Ueberzeugung,  so  ist  er  ein  Narr; 
thut  er  es  aus  Gleissnerei,  so  ist  er  ein  Lump.  Ich  werde  zwar 
nicht  aufhoren,  Gans  zu  lieben;  dennoch  gestehe  ich,  weit 
lieber  war's  mir  gewesen,  wenn  ich  statt  obiger  Nachricht 
erfahren  hatte,  Gans  habe  silberne  Loffel  gestohlen.  .  .  .  Es 
ware  mir  sehr  leid,  wenn  mein  eigenes  Getauftsein  Dir  in 
einem  giinstigen  Lichte  erscheinen  konnte.  Ich  versichere 
Dich,  wenn  die  Gesetze  das  Stehlen  silberner  Loffel  erlaubt 
hatten,  so  wiirde  ich  mich  nicht  getauft  haben."^  But  in  addi- 
tion to  the  loss  of  self-respect  came  his  disappointment  and 
chagrin  at  the  non-success  of  his  move,  since  he  realized  that 
it  was  not  even  bringing  him  the  material  gain  for  which  he 
had  hoped.  Instead,  he  felt  himself  an  object  of  contempt 
among  Christians  and  Jews  alike.  "Ich  bin  jetzt  bei  Christ 
und  Jude  verhasst.  Ich  bereue  sehr,  dass  ich  mich  getauft 
hab' ;  ich  sehe  gar  nicht  ein,  dass  es  mir  seitdem  besser  gegan- 
gen  sei ;  im  Gegenteil,  ich  habe  seitdem  nichts  als  Ungluck."^ 
He  is  so  unhappy  in  consequence  of  this  step  that  he  earnestly 
desires  to  leave  Germany.  "Es  ist  aber  ganz  bestimmt,  dass  es 
mich  sehnlichst  drangt,  dem  deutschen  Vaterlande  Valet  zu 
sagen.  Minder  die  Lust  des  Wanderns  als  die  Qual  person- 
licher  Verhaltnisse  (z.  B.  der  nie  abzuwaschende  Jude)  treibt 
mich  von  hinnen."" 

In  his  tragedy  "Almansor,"  written  during  the  years  1820  and 
1 82 1,*  his  deep-rooted  antipathy  to  Christianity  finds  strong  ex- 
pression through  Almansor,  although  the  countervailing  argu- 
ments are  eloquently  stated  by  the  heroine.  Prophetic  of  the 
poet's  own  later  experience  is  the  representation  of  the  hero, 
who  is  beguiled  by  his  love  for  Zuleima  into  vowing  allegiance 
to. the  Christian  faith,  only  to  find  that  the  sacrifice  has  failed 
to  win  for  him  the  object  for  which  it  was  made.  In  the  char- 
acter of  Almansor,  more  than  anywhere  else,  Heine's  "Liebes- 
schmerz"  and  "Judenschmerz"  have  combined  to  produce  in 
him  an  inner  dissonance  which  expresses  itself  in  lyric  lines  of 
real  Weltschmerz : 

^  Karpeles  ed.  Werke,  VIII,  p.   473. 

-  Cf.  Heine's  letter  to  Moser,  Jan.  9,   1826,  in  Karpeles'  Autob.  p.   191. 

'  Karpeles  ed.   Werke,  VIII,  p.   491. 

*  Cf.  Werke,  Einleitung,  Vol.  II,  p.  241. 


71 

Ich  bin  recht  miid 
Und  krank,  und  kranker  noch  als  krank,  denn  ach, 
Die  allerschlimmste  Krankheit  ist  das  Leben ; 
Und  heilen  kann  sie  nur  der  Tod ^ 

But  here  too,  as  in  "Ratcliff,"  such  passages  are  exceptional. 
In  the  main  these  tragedies  are  nothing  more  than  vehicles  for 
the  poet's  stormy  protest,  much  of  it  after  the  Storm  and 
Stress  pattern ;-  and  mere  protest,  however  acrimonious,  can- 
not be  called  Weltschmerz. 

Certain  it  is  that  during  these  early  years  numerous  disap- 
pointments other  than  those  of  love  contributed  to  produce  in 
the  poet  a  gloomy  state  of  mind.  A  reflection  of  the  unhap- 
piness  which  he  had  experienced  during  his  residence  in  Ham- 
burg is  found  in  many  passages  in  his  correspondence  which 
express  his  repugnance  for  the  city  and  its  people.  To  Im- 
manuel  Wohlwill  (1823)  :  "Es  freut  mich,  dass  es  Dir  in  den 
Armen  der  aimablen  Ham.monia  zu  behagen  beginnt;  mir  ist 
diese  Schone  zuwider,  Mich  tauscht  nicht  der  goldgestickte 
Rock,  ich  weiss,  sie  tragt  ein  schmutziges  Hemd  auf  dem 
gelben  Leibe,  und  mit  den  schmelzenden  Liebesseufzern  'Rind- 
fleisch-''  Banko !'  sinkt  sie  an  die  Brust  des  Meistbietenden.  .  .  . 
Vielleicht  thue  ich  aber  der  guten  Stadt  Hamburg  unrecht ;  die 
Stimmung,  die  mich  beherrschte,  als  ich  dort  einige  Zeit  lebte, 
war  nicht  dazu  geeignet,  mich  zu  einem  unbefangenen  Beur- 
teiler  zu  machen;  mein  inneres  Leben  war  briitendes  A^ersin- 
ken  in  den  diisteren,  nur  von  phantastischen  Lichtern  durch- 
blitzten  Schacht  der  Traumwelt,  mein  ausseres  Leben  war 
toll,  wiist,  cynisch,  abstossend ;  mit  einem  Worte.  ich  machte  es 
zum  schneidenden  Gegensatz  meines  inneren  Lebens,  damit 
mich  dieses  nicht  durch  sein  L^ebergewicht  zerstore."^  To 
Moser  (1823)  :  "Hamburg?  sollte  ich  dort  noch  so  viele  Freu- 
den  finden  konnen,  als  ich  schon  Schmerzen  dort  empfand? 
Dieses  ist  freilich  unmoglich — "■*  "Hamburg  ! ! !  mein  Elysium 
und  Tartarus  zu  gleicher  Zeit !  Ort,  den  ich  detestiere  und  am 
meisten  Hebe,  wo  mich  die  abscheulichsten  Gefiihle  martern  und 

^  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  293. 

*  Cf.  Almansor's  speech,  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  288  f. 
^  Karpeles  ed.   Werke,  VIII,  p.   363. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  384, 


72 

wo  ich  mich  dennoch  hinwiinsche."^  Another  letter  to  Moser 
is  dated:  "Verdammtes  Hamburg,  den  14.  Dezember,  1825."^ 
The  following  year  he  writes,  in  a  letter  to  Immermann :  'Teh 
verliess  Gottingen,  suchte  in  Hamburg  ein  Unterkommen,  fand 
aber  nichts  als  Feinde,  Verklatschung  und  Aerger."^  And  to 
Varnhagen  von  Ense  (1828)  :  "Nach  Hamburg  werde  ich  nie 
in  diesem  Leben  zuriickkehren ;  es  sind  mir  Dinge  von  der  aus- 
sersten  Bitterkeit  dort  passiert,  sie  waren  auch  nicht  zu  ertragen 
gewesen,  ohne  den  Umstand,  dass  nur  ich  sie  weiss."*  To  his 
mother's  insistent  pleading  he  replies  (1833)  :  "Aber  ich  will, 
wenn  Du  es  durchaus  verlangst,  diesen  Sommer  auf  acht  Tage 
nach  Hamburg  kommen,  nach  dem  schandlichen  Neste,  wo  ich 
meinen  Feinden  den  Triumph  gonnen  soil,  mich  wiederzusehen 
und  mit  Beleidigungen  iiberhaufen  zu  konnen."^ 

His  several  endeavors  to  establish  himself  on  a  firm  material 
footing  in  life  had  failed, — he  had  sought  for  a  place  in  a 
Berlin  high  school,  then  entertained  the  idea  of  practising  law 
in  Hamburg,  then  aspired  to  a  professorship  in  Munich,  but 
without  success.  But  more  than  by  all  these  reverses,  more 
even  than  by  the  circumstances  and  consequences  of  his  Hebrew 
parentage,  was  the  poet  wrought  up  by  the  family  strife  over  the 
payment  of  his  pension,  which  followed  upon  the  death  of  his 
uncle  in  December,  1844,  and  which  lasted  for  several  years. 
From  the  very  beginning  he  had  had  much  intermittent  annoy- 
ance through  his  dealings  with  his  sporadically  generous  uncle 
Salomon  Heine.  As  early  as  1823  Heine  writes  to  Moser: 
"Auch  weiss  ich,  dass  mein  Oheim,  der  sich  hier  so  gemein 
zeigt,  zu  andern  Zeiten  die  Generositat  selbst  ist;  aber  es  ist 
doch  in  mir  der  Vorsatz  aufgekommen,  alles  anzuwenden,  um 
mich  so  bald  als  moglich  von  der  Gute  meines  Oheims  loszureis- 
sen.  Jetzt  habe  ich  ihn  freilich  noch  notig,  und  wie  knickerig 
auch  die  Unterstiitzung  ist,  die  er  mir  zufliessen  lasst,  so  kann 
ich  dieselbe  nicht  entbehren."*'  And  again  in  the  same  year : 
"Es  ist  fatal,  dass  bei  mir  der  ganze  Mensch  durch  das  Budget 

1  Karpeles  ed.  Werke,  VIII,  p.   391. 

'  Ibid.,  p.  472. 

^Ibid.,  p.   503. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  540. 

»  Ibid.,  IX,  p.  25. 

»  Ibid.,  VIII,  p.  392. 


73 

regiert  wird.  Aiif  meine  Grundsatze  hat  Geldmangel  oder 
Ueberfluss  nicht  den  mindesten  Einfluss,  aber  desto  mehr  auf 
meine  Handlungen.  Ja,  grosser  Moser,  der  H.  Heine  ist  sehr 
klein."^  And  when,  after  his  uncle's  demise,  the  heirs  of  the 
latter  threatened  to  cut  ofT  the  poet's  pension,  he  writes  to 
Campe-  and  to  Detmold,^  in  a  frenzy  of  wrath  and  excitement, 
and  shows  what  he  is  really  capable  of  under  pressure  of  cir- 
cumstances. Perhaps  it  is  only  fair  to  suppose  that  his  long 
years  of  suffering,  both  from  his  physical  condition  and  from 
the  unscrupulous  attacks  of  his  enemies,  had  had  a  corroding 
effect  upon  his  moral  sensibilities.  In  his  request  to  Campe 
to  act  as  mediator  in  the  disagreeable  affair  he  says  :  "Sie  kon- 
nen  alle  Schuld  des  Missverstandnisses  auf  mich  schieben,  die 
Grossmut  der  Familie  hervorstreichen,  kurz,  mich  sacrificiren." 
And  all  this  to  be  submitted  to  the  public  in  print !  "Ich  gestehe 
Ihnen  heute  ofifen,  ich  habe  gar  keine  Eitelkeit  in  der  Weise 
andrer  Menschen,  mir  liegt  am  Ende  gar  nichts  an  der  INIeinung 
des  Publikums ;  mir  ist  nur  eins  wichtig,  die  Befried'gung 
meines  inneren  Willens,  die  Selbstachtung  meiner  Seele."  But 
how  he  was  able  to  preserve  his  self-respect,  and  at  the  same 
time  be  willing  to  employ  any  and  all  means  to  attain  his  end, 
perhaps  no  one  less  unscrupulous  than  he  could  comprehend. 
He  intimates  that  he  has  decided  upon  threats  and  public 
intimidation  as  being  probably  more  effective  than  a  servile 
attitude,  which,  he  allows  us  to  infer,  he  would  be  quite  willing 
to  take  if  advisable.  "Das  Beste  muss  hier  die  Presse  thun  zur 
Intimidation,  und  die  ersten  Kotwiirfe  auf  Karl  Heine  und 
namentlich  auf  Adolf  Halle  werden  schon  wirken.  Die  Leute 
sind  an  Dreck  nicht  gewohnt,  wahrend  ich  ganze  Mistkarren 
vertragen  kann,  ja  diese,  wie  auf  Blumenbeeten,  nur  mein 
Gedeihen  zeitigen."* 

It  is  quite  evident  that  this  long  drawn  out  quarrel  aroused 
all  that  was  mean  and  vindictive,  all  that  was  immoral  in  the 
man,  and  that  the  nervous  excitement  thereby  induced  had  a 
most  baneful  effect  upon  his  entire  nature,  physical  as  well  as 

1  Karpeles  ed.  VIII,  p.  396. 

2  Ibid.,  IX,  p.  308  ff. 

*  Ibid.,  p.  316. 

*  Letter  to  Detmold,  Jan.  9,  1845,  Werke  (Karpeles  ed.),  Vol.  IX,  p.  310. 


74 

mental.  In  a  number  of  poems  he  has  given  expression  to  his 
anger  and  has  masterfully  cursed  his  adversaries,  for  example, 
"Es  gab  den  Dolch  in  deine  Hand,"^  "Sie  kiissten  mich  mit 
ihren  falschen  Lippen,"^  and  several  following  ones.  But  here, 
too,  his  fancy  is  altogether  too  busy  with  the  suitable  charac- 
terization of  his  enemies  and  the  invention  of  adequate  tortures 
for  them,  to  leave  room  for  even  a  suggestion  of  the  Welt- 
schmerz  which  we  might  expect  to  result  from  such  painful 
emotions. 

It  is  scarcely  necessary  to  theorize  as  to  what  would  have  been 
the  attitude  and  conduct  of  a  sensitive  Holderlin  or  a  proud- 
spirited Lenau  in  a  similar  position.  Lenau  is  too  proud  to 
protest,  preferring  to  sufifer.  Heine  is  too  vain  to  appear  as  a 
sufferer,  so  he  meets  adversity,  not  in  a  spirit  of  admirable  cour- 
age, but  in  a  spirit  of  bravado.  In  giving  lyric  utterance  to  his 
resentment,  Heine  is  conscious  that  the  world  is  looking  on, 
and  so  he  indulges,  even  in  the  expression  of  his  Weltschmerz, 
in  a  vain  ostentation  which  stands  in  marked  contrast  to  Lenau's 
dignified  pride.  He  is  quite  right  when  he  says  in  a  letter  to 
his  friend  Moser:  "Ich  bin  nicht  gross  genug,  um  Erniedri- 
gung  zu  tragen."'^ 

As  an  illustration  of  the  vain  display  which  he  makes  of  his 
sadness,  his  poem  "Der  Traurige"  may  be  quoted  in  part : 

Allen  tliut  es  well  in  Herzen, 
Die  den  bleichen  Knaben  sehn, 
Dem  die  Leiden,  dem  die  Schmerzen 
Auf's  Gesicht  geschrieben  stehn.* 

A  similar  impression  is  made  by  the  concluding  numbers  of 
the  Intermezzo,  "Die  alten,  bosen  Lieder."'^  And  here  again 
the  comparison, — even  if  merely  as  to  size, — of  a  coffin  with 
the  "Heidelberger  Fass"  is  most  incongruous,  to  say  the  least, 
and  tends  very  effectually  to  destroy  the  serious  sentiment 
which  the  poem,  with  less  definite  exaggerations,  might  have 

iWerke,  Vol.   II,  p.    104. 
^Ibid.,  Vol.  II,  p.   105. 
^  Cf.  Karpeles'  Autob.  p.  164. 
^Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  35. 
^Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  92. 


75 

conveyed.  Similarly  overdone  is  his  poetic  preface  to  the 
"Rabbi"  sent  to  his  friend  Moser  ■} 

Brich  aus  in  lauten  Klagen 
Du  diistres  Martyrerlied, 
Das  ich  so  lang  getragen 
Im  flammenstillen  Gemiit ! 

Es  dringt  in  alle  Ohren, 
Und  durch  die  Ohren  ins  Herz; 
Ich  habe  gewaltig  beschworen 
Den  tausendjahrigen  Schmerz. 

Es  weinen  dir  Grossen  und  Kleinen, 
Sogar  die  kalten  Herrn, 
Die  Frauen  und  Blumen  weinen, 
Es  weinen  am  Himmel  die  Stern. 

It  is  not  necessary,  even  if  it  were  to  the  point,  to  adduce 
further  evidence  of  Heine's  vanity  as  expressed  in  his  prose 
writings,  or  in  poems  such  as  the  much-quoted 

Nennt  man  die  besten  Namen, 
So  wird  auch  der  meine  genannt." 

It  cannot  be  denied  that  this  element  of  vanity,  of  showiness, 
only  serves  to  emphasize  our  impression  of  the  unreality  of 
much  of  Heine's  Weltschmerz. 

With  the  reference  to  this  element  of  ostentation  in  Heine's 
Weltschmerz  there  is  suggested  at  once  the  question  of  the 
Byronic  pose,  and  of  Byron's  influence  in  general  upon  the 
German  poet.  On  the  general  relationship  between  the  two 
poets  much  has  been  written,^  so  that  we  may  confine  ourselves 
here  to  the  consideration  of  certain  points  of  resemblance  in 
their  Weltschmerz. 

Julian  Schmidt  names  Byron  as  the  constellation  which  ruled 
the  heavens  during  the  period  from  the  Napoleonic  wars  to  the 
"Volkerfriihling,"  1848,  as  the  meteor  upon  which  at  that  time 
the  eyes  of  all  Europe  were  fixed.  Certainly  the  English  poet 
could  not  have  wished  for  a  more  auspicious  introduction  and 

iWerke,  Vol.  II,  p.   164. 

^  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.   102. 

3  One  of  the  most  exhaustive  monographs  on  the  subject  is  that  of  Felix  Mel- 
chior  (Cf.  bibliography,  infra  p.  90),  to  whom  I  am  indebted  for  several  of  the 
parallels  suggested. 


76 

endorsation  in  Germany,  if  he  had  needed  such,  than  that 
which  was  given  him  by  Goethe  himself,  whose  subsequent 
tribute  in  his  Euphorion  in  the  second  part  of  "Faust"  is  one 
of  Byron's  most  splendid  memorials.  The  enthusiasm  which 
Lord  Byron  aroused  in  Germany  is  attested  by  Goethe:  'Tm 
Jahre  1816,  also  einige  Jahre  nach  dem  Erscheinen  des  ersten 
Gesanges  des  'Childe  Harold,'  trat  englische  Poesie  und 
Literatur  vor  alien  andern  in  den  Vordergrund.  Lord  Byrons 
Gedichte,  je  mehr  man  sich  mit  den  Eigenheiten  dieses  ausser- 
ordentlichen  Geistes  bekannt  machte,  gewannen  immer  grossere 
Teilnahme,  so  dass  Manner  und  Frauen,  Magdlein  und  Jung- 
gesellen  fast  aller  Deutschheit  und  Nationalitat  zu  vergessen 
schienen."^ 

It  is  important  to  note  that  this  first  period  of  unrestrained 
Byron  enthusiasm  coincides  with  the  formative  and  impres- 
sionable years  of  Heine's  youth.  In  his  first  book  of  poems, 
published  in  182 1,  he  included  translations  from  Byron,  in 
reviewing  which  Immermann  pointed  out-  that  while  Heine's 
poems  showed  a  superficial  resemblance  to  those  of  Byron,  the 
temperament  of  the  former  was  far  removed  from  the  sinister 
scorn  of  the  English  lord,  that  it  was  in  fact  much  more 
cheerful  and  enamored  of  life.^  There  is  plenty  of  evidence, 
however,  to  show  that  it  was  exceedingly  gratifying  to  the 
young  Heine  to  have  his  name  associated  with  that  of  Byron ; 
and  although  he  had  no  enthusiasm  for  Byron's  philhellenism, 
he  was  pleased  to  write,  June  25,  1824,  on  hearing  of  the 
Englishman's  death :  "Der  Todesfall  Byrons  hat  mich 
iibrigens  sehr  bewegt.  Es  war  der  einzige  Mensch,  mit  dem 
ich  mich  verwandt  fiihlte,  und  wir  mogen  uns  wohl  in 
manchen  Dingen  geglichen  haben ;  scherze  nur  dariiber,  soviel 
Du  willst.  Ich  las  ihn  selten  seit  einigen  Jahren ;  man  geht 
lieber  um  mit  Menschen,  deren  Charakter  von  dem  unsrigen 
verschieden  ist.  Ich  bin  aber  mit  Byron  immer  behaglich  um- 
gegangen,  wie  mit  einem  vollig  gleichen  Spiesskameraden. 
Mit  Shakespeare  kann  ich  gar  nicht  behaglich  umgehen,  ich 

*  Weimar  Ausg.  I  Abt.  Bd.  36,  p.   128. 

-  In  the  Rheinisch-ivestfalischer  Anzeiger,  May  31,  1822,  No.  23. 
'  Cf.   Strodtmann,   "H.   Heines    Leben    und    Werke,''    3.    ed.,    Hamburg,    1884. 
\'o\.  I,  p.  200. 


77 

fiihle  nur  zu  sehr,  dass  ich  nicht  seinesgleichen  bin,  er  ist  der 
allgewaltige  Minister,  und  ich  bin  ein  blosser  Hofrat,  und  es 
ist  mir,  als  ob  er  mich  jeden  Augenblick  absetzen  konnte."^ 
Significant  is  the  allusion  in  this  same  letter  to  a  proposition 
which  the  writer  seems  to  have  made  to  his  friend  in  a 
previous  one:  "...  ich  darf  Dir  Dein  Versprechen  in  Hin- 
sicht  des  'Morgenblattes'  durchaus  nicht  erlassen.  Robert 
besorgt  gern  den  Aufsatz.  Byron  ist  jetzt  tot,  und  ein  Wort 
iiber  ihn  ist  jetzt  passend.  Vergiss  es  nicht;  Du  thust  mir 
einen  sehr  grossen  Gefallen."-  We  shall  probably  not  be  far 
astray  in  assuming  that  the  "Gefallen"  was  to  have  been  the 
advertising  of  Heine  as  the  natural  successor  of  Byron  in 
European  literature.  Three  months  later  he  once  more  urges 
the  request:  "Auch  fande  ich  es  noch  immer  angemessen,  ja 
jetzt  mehr  als  je,  dass  Du  Dich  iiber  Byron  und  Komp.  verneh- 
men  liessest."^ 

But  it  was  not  long  before  Heine,  with  an  increasing  sense 
of  literary  independence,  reinforced  no  doubt  by  the  reaction 
of  public  opinion  against  Byron,  and  influenced  also  by  his 
friend  Immermann's  judgment  in  particular,*  was  no  longer 
willing  to  be  considered  a  disciple  of  the  English  master. 
Several  unmistakable  references  betoken  this  change  of  heart, 
for  example,  the  following  from  his  "Nordsee"  HI  (1826): 
"Wahrlich  in  diesem  Augenblicke  fiihle  ich  sehr  lebhaft,  dass 
ich  kein  Nachbeter,  oder,  besser  gesagt,  Nachfrevler,  Byrons 
bin,  mein  Blut  ist  nicht  so  spleenisch  schwarz,  meine  Bitterkeit 
kommt  nur  aus  den  Gallapfeln  meiner  Dinte,  und  wenn  Gift  in 
mir  ist,  so  ist  es  doch  nur  Gegengift,  Gegengift  wider  jene 
Schlangen,  die  im  Schutte  der  alten  Dome  und  Burgen  so  be- 
drohlich  lauern."^  Byron,  instead  of  being  regarded  as  "kin- 
dred spirit"  and  "cousin,"  is  now  characterized  as  a  ruthless  de- 

1  Karpeles  ed.  Werke,  VIII,  p.  434- 

"Ibid.,  p.  433. 

^  Ibid.,  p.  441. 

*  In  discussing  the  first  volume  of  Heine's  "Reisebilder,"  Immermann  had  said: 
"Man  hat  Heinen  beim  Beginn  seiner  dichterischen  Laufbahn  mit  Byron  vergleichen 
wollen.  Diese  Vergleichung  scheint  nicht  zu  passen.  Der  Brite  bringt  mit  un- 
geheuren  Mitteln  nur  massige  poetische  Effekte  hervor,  wahrend  Heine  eine  Anlage 
zeigt,  sich  kiinstlerisch  zu  begrenzen  und  den  Stoff  ganzlich  in  die  Form  zu  absor- 
bieren."     (Jahrbitcher  f.  vissenschaftliche  Kritik,   1827,  No.  97,  p.  767.) 

6  Werke,  III,  p.   116. 


78 

stroyer  of  venerable  forms,  injuring  the  most  sacred  flowers  of 
life  with  his  melodious  poison,  or  as  a  mad  harlequin  who 
thrusts  the  steel  into  his  heart,  in  order  that  he  may  teasingly 
bespatter  ladies  and  gentlemen  with  the  black  spurting  blood. 
In  remarkable  contrast  with  his  former  views,  he  now  writes : 
"Von  alien  grossen  Schriftstellern  ist  Byron  just  derjenige, 
dessen  Lektiire  mich  am  unleidigsten  beriihrt." 

Perhaps  the  most  interesting  passage  in  this  connection, 
because  so  thoroughly  characteristic  of  the  Byronic  pose  in 
Heine,  occurs  in  the  "Bader  von  Lucca" :  "Lieber  Leser, 
gehorst  du  vielleicht  zu  jenen  frommen  Vogeln,  die  da  ein- 
stimmen  in  das  Lied  von  Byronischer  Zerrissenheit,  das  mir 
schon  seit  zehn  Jahren  in  alien  Weisen  vorgepfiffen  und  vor- 
gezwitschert  worden  .  ,  .  ?  Ach,  teurer  Leser,  wenn  du 
iiber  jene  Zerrissenheit  klagen  willst,  so  beklage  lieber,  dass  die 
Welt  selbst  mitten  entzwei  gerissen  ist.  Denn  da  das  Herz  des 
Dichters  der  Mittelpunkt  der  Welt  ist,  so  musste  es  wohl  in 
jetziger  Zeit  jammerlich  zerrissen  werden.  Wer  von  seinem 
Herzen  riihmt,  es  sei  ganz  geblieben,  der  gesteht  nur,  dass  er 
ein  prosaisches,  weitabgelegenes  Winkelherz  hat.  Durch  das 
meinige  ging  aber  der  grosse  Weltriss,  und  eben  deswegen  weiss 
ich,  dass  die  grossen  Gotter  mich  vor  vielen  andern  hoch 
begnadigt  und  des  Dichtermartyrtums  wiirdig  geachtet 
haben."^  Here  while  vociferously  disclaiming  all  kinship  or 
sympathy  with  Byron,  he  pays  him  the  flattering  compliment 
of  imitation.  Probably  nowhere  in  Byron  could  we  find  a 
more  pompous  display  of  egoism  under  the  guise  of  Welt- 
schmerz. 

Byron's  Weltschmerz,  like  Heine's,  had  its  first  provocation 
in  a  purely  personal  experience.  "To  a  Lady"^  and  "Remem- 
brance"^ both  give  expression  in  passionate  terms  to  the  poet's 
disappointed  love  for  Mary  Chaworth,  the  parallel  in  Heine's 
case  being  his  infatuation  for  his  cousin  Amalie.  The  neces- 
sity for  defending  himself  against  a  public  opinion  actively  hos- 

iWerke,  Vol.   Ill,  p.  304. 

^Byron's  Works,  Coleridge  ed.,  London  and  New  York,   1898.     Vol.  I,  p.   189  ff. 

^  Ibid.,  p.   211. 


79 

tile  to  his  earliest  poems/  largely  diverted  Byron  from  this 
first  painful  theme,  so  that  from  this  time  on  until  he  left 
England,  he  is  almost  incessantly  engaged  in  a  bitter  warfare 
against  the  injustice  of  critics  and  of  society.  To  this  second 
period  Heine's  development  also  shows  a  general  resemblance. 
Thus  far  both  poets  exhibit  a  purely  egoistic  type  of  Welt- 
schmerz.  But  with  his  separation  from  his  wife  in  1816,  and 
his  final  departure  from  England,  that  of  Byron  enters  upon  a 
third  period  and  becomes  cosmic.  Ostracized  by  English  so- 
ciety, his  relations  with  it  finally  severed,  he  disdains  to  defend 
himself  further  against  its  criticism,  and  espouses  the  cause  of 
unhappy  humanity.  No  longer  his  own  personal  woes,  but 
rather  those  of  the  nations  of  the  earth  are  nearest  his  heart : 

What  are  our  woes  and  sufferance?     .     .     . 

Ye! 

Whose  agonies  are  evils  of  a  day — 

A  world  is  at  our  feet  as  fragile  as  our  clay.^ 

And  in  contemplating  the  ruins  of  the  Palatine  Hill : 

Upon  such  a  shrine 

What  are  our  petty  griefs?     Let  me  not  number  mine.* 

Here  we  have  the  essential  difference  between  these  two  types 
of  Weltschmerz.  Heine  does  not,  like  Byron,  make  this  tran- 
sition from  the  personal  to  the  universal  stage.  Instead  of 
becoming  cosmic  in  his  Weltschmerz,  he  remains  for  ever 
egoistic. 

Numerous  quotations  might  he  adduced  from  the  writings 
of  both  poets,  which  would  seem  to  indicate  that  Heine  had 
borrowed  many  of  his  ideas  and  even  some  forms  of  expression 
from  Byron.  Except  in  the  case  of  the  most  literal  corre- 
spondence, this  is  generally  a  very  unsafe  deduction.  Such 
passages  as  a  rule  prove  nothing  more  than  a  similarity,  pos- 
sibly   quite    independent,    in    the    trend    of   their    pessimistic 

^  Cf.  the  poems  "To  a  Knot  of  Ungenerous  Critics,"  "English  Bards  and 
Scotch  Reviewers,"  and  others. 

*  Coleridge  ed.,  Vol.   II,  p.  388  f. 
'  Ibid.,  p.  406. 


80 

thought.     Compare   for  example  Byron's   lines   in  the  poem 
"And  wilt  thou  weep  when  I  am  low  ?" 

Oh  lady!  blessed  be  that  tear — 
It  falls  for  one  who  cannot  weep ; 
Such  precious  drops  are  doubly  dear 
To  those  whose  eyes  no  tear  may  steep,' 

with  Heine's  stanza : 

Seit  ich  sie  verloren  hab', 
Schafft'  ich  auch  das  Weinen  ab ; 
Fast  vor  Weh  das  Herz  mir  bricht, 
Aber  weinen  kann  ich  nicht.^ 

Or  again,  "Childe  Harold,"  IV,  136: 

From  mighty  wrongs  to  petty  perfidy 
Have  I  not  seen  what  human  things  could  do? 
From  the  loud  roar  of  foaming  calumny 
To  the  small  whisper  of  the  as  paltry  few — 
And  subtler  venom  of  the  reptile  crew,^ 

with  the  first  lines  of  Heine's  ninth  sonnet : 

Ich  mochte  weinen,  doch  ich  kann  es  nicht; 
Ich  mocht'  mich  riistig  in  die  Hohe  heben, 
Doch  kann  ich's  nicht ;  am  Boden  muss  ich  kleben, 
Umkrachzt,  umzischt  von  eklem  Wurmgeziicht,* 

a  thought  which  in  one  of  his  letters  (1823)  he  paraphrases 
thus :  "Der  Gedanke  an  Dich,  Hebe  Schwester,  muss  mich  zu- 
weilen  aufrecht  halten,  wenn  die  grosse  Masse  mit  ihrem 
dummen  Hass  und  ihrer  ekelhaften  Liebe  mich  niederdriickt."" 
There  can  be  no  doubt  that  Heine  for  a  time  studied  dili- 
gently to  imitate  this  fashionable  model,  pose,  irony  and  all. 
So  diligently  perhaps,  that  he  himself  was  sometimes  unable 
to  distinglish  between  imitation  and  reality.  So  at  least  it 
would  appear  from  No.  44  of  "Die  Heimkehr :" 

Ach   Gott !   im  Scherz  und  unbewusst 
Sprach  ich,  was  ich  gefiihlet : 
Ich  hab  mit  dem  Tod  in  der  eignen  Brust 
Den  sterbenden  Fechter  gespielet.* 

^  Coleridge  ed.,  Vol.  I,  p.  266  f. 
2  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  78. 

*  Coleridge  ed.,  Vol.  II,  p.  429. 

*  Werke,  Vol.  I,  p.  61. 

"  Karpeles  ed.  Werke,  VIII,  p.  411. 

*  Werke,  I,  p.   117. 


81 

In  summing  up  our  impressions  of  the  two  poets  we  shall 
scarcely  escape  the  feeling  that  while  Byron  is  pleased  to  dis- 
play his  troubles  and  his  heart-aches  before  the  curious  gaze 
of  the  world,  they  are  at  least  in  the  main  real  troubles  and  sin- 
cere heart-aches,  whereas  Heine,  on  the  other  hand,  does  a 
large  business  in  Weltschmerz  on  a  very  small  capital. 

Nor  is  Heine  the  man  more  convincing  as  to  his  sincerity 
than  Heine  the  poet.  No  more  striking  instance  of  this  fact 
could  perhaps  be  found  than  his  letter  to  Laube  on  hearing 
the  news  of  Immermann's  death.^  "Gestern  Abend  erfuhr 
ich  durch  das  Journal  des  Debats  ganz  zufallig  den  Tod  von 
Immermann.  Ich  habe  die  ganze  Nacht  durch  geweint. 
Welch  ein  Ungliick !  .  .  .  Welch  einen  grossen  Dichter  haben 
wir  Deutschen  verloren,  ohne  ihn  jemals  recht  gekannt  zu 
haben!  Wir,  ich  meine  Deutschland,  die  alte  Rabenmutter ! 
Und  nicht  nur  ein  grosser  Dichter  war  er,  sondern  auch  brav 
und  ehrlich,  und  deshalb  liebte  ich  ihn.  Ich  liege  ganz 
darnieder  vor  Kummer."  But  scarcely  has  he  turned  the  page 
with  a  short  intervening  paragraph,  when  he  continues :  "Ich 
bin,  sonderbar  genug,  sehr  guter  Laune,"  and  concludes  the 
letter  with  some  small  talk.  Now  if  he  was  sincere,  as  we 
may  assume  he  was,  in  the  asseveration  of  his  grief  at  the  death 
of  his  friend,  then  either  that  grief  must  have  been  anything 
but  profound,  or  we  have  the  clearest  sort  of  evidence  of  the 
poet's  incapacity  for  serious  feeling  of  more  than  momentary 
duration.  It  is  safe  to  assert  that  Heine  never  set  himself  a 
high  artistic  task,  and  remained  true  to  his  purpose  until  the 
task  was  accomplished.  In  other  words,  Heine  betrays  a  lack 
of  will-energy  along  artistic  lines,  which  in  the  case  of  Holder- 
lin  and  Lenau  was  more  evident  in  their  attitude  toward  the 
practical  things  of  life. 

But  the  fact  that  Heine  never  created  a  monumental  liter- 
ary work  of  enduring  worth  is  not  attributable  solely  to  a 
fickleness  of  artistic  purpose  or  lack  of  will-energy.  We  find 
its  explanation  rather  in  the  poet's  own  statement:  "Die 
Poesie  ist  am  Ende  doch  nur  eine  schone  Nebensache."-  and  to 

1  Werke,  Karpeles  ed.  Vol.  IX,  p.   162  f. 

''Letter  to  Immermann,  Werke   (Karpeles  ed.),  Vol.  VIII,  p.  354. 

6 


82 

this  principle,  consciously  or  unconsciously,  Heine  steadily 
adhered.  Certain  it  is  that  he  took  a  much  lower  view  of  his 
art  than  did  Holderlin  or  Lenau.  Hence  we  find  him  ever 
ready  to  degrade  his  muse  by  making  it  the  vehicle  for  immoral 
thoughts  and  abominable  calumnies.^ 

The  question  of  Heine's  patriotism  has  always  been  a  much- 
debated  one,  and  must  doubtless  remain  so.  But  whatever 
opinion  we  may  hold  in  regard  to  his  real  attitude  and 
feelings  toward  the  land  of  his  birth,  this  we  shall  have  to  ad- 
mit, that  there  are  exceedingly  few  traces  of  Weltschmerz 
arising  from  this  source.  Genuine  feeling  is  expressed  in  the 
two-stanza  poem  "Ich  hatte  einst  ein  schones  Vaterland"^  and 
also  in  "Lebensfahrt,"^  although  this  latter  poem  illustrates  a 
characteristic  of  so  many  of  his  writings,  namely  that  he  him- 
self is  their  central  figure.  It  is  the  sublime  egoism  which 
characterizes  Heine  and  all  his  works.  No  wonder,  then,  that 
one  of  his  few  "Freiheitslieder"  refers  to  his  own  personal  lib- 
erty.* For  the  failings  of  his  countrymen  he  is  ever  ready 
with  scathing  satire,^  he  grieves  over  his  separation  from  them 
only  when  he  thinks  of  his  mother  f  and  in  regard  to  the  future 
of  Germany  he  is  for  the  most  part  sceptical.'^  In  a  word, 
Heine's  lyric  utterances  in  regard  to  his  fatherland  are  of  so 
mixed  a  character,  that  altogether  aside  from  the  question  of 
the  sincerity  of  his  feeling  toward  the  land  of  his  birth,  cer- 
tainly none  but  the  blindest  partisan  would  be  able  to  discover 
more  than  a  negligible  quantity  of  Weltschmerz  directly  at- 
tributable to  this  influence. 

Heine's  conscience  is  at  best  a  doubtful  quantity.  Where 
Byron  with  a  sincere  sense  and  acknowledgment  of  his  guilt 
writes : 

1  Cf.    his    vulgar    prognostication    of    Germany's    future,    Kaput    XXVI    of    the 
"Wintermarchen,"  Werke,  Vol.  II,  p.  488  ff. 
^Werke,  Vol.   I,  p.  263. 
'Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  308. 
*  Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  301,  "Adam  der  erste." 
^Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  316,  "Zur  Beruhigung." 
'Ibid.,  Vol.  I,  p.  320,  "Nachtgedanken." 
''  Cf.  supra,  note   i. 


83 

"My  injuries  came  down  on  those  who  loved  me — 

On  those  whom  I  best  loved : 

But  my  embrace  was  fatal."^ 

Heine  sees  it  in  quite  another  light :  "War  ich  doch  selber  jetzt 
das  lebende  Gesetz  der  Moral  und  der  Quell  alles  Rechtes  und 
aller  Befugnis ;  die  anriichigsten  Magdalenen  wurden  purifi- 
ziert  durch  die  lauternde  und  siihnende  Macht  meiner  Liebes- 
flammen,"-  a  moral  aberration  which  he  attributes  to  an  im- 
perfect interpretation  of  the  difficult  philosophy  of  Hegel.  If 
further  evidence  were  necessary  to  show  the  perversity  of 
Heine's  moral  sense,  the  following  paragraph  from  a  letter  to 
Varnhagen  would  suffice,  in  its  way  perhaps  as  remarkable  a 
contribution  to  the  theory  of  ethics  as  has  ever  been  penned: 
"In  Deutschland  ist  man  noch  nicht  so  weit,  zu  begreifen,  dass 
ein  Mann,  der  das  Edelste  durch  Wort  und  That  befordern 
will,  sich  oft  einige  kleine  Lumpigkeiten,  sei  es  aus  Spass  oder 
aus  Vorteil,  zu  schulden  kommen  lassen  darf,  wenn  er  nur  durch 
diese  Lumpigkeiten  (d.  h.  Handlungen,  die  im  Grunde  ignobel 
sind,)  der  grossen  Idee  seines  Lebens  nichts  schadet,  ja  dass 
diese  Lumpigkeiten  oft  sogar  lobenswert  sind,  wenn  sie  uns  in 
den  Stand  setzen,  der  grossen  Idee  unsres  Lebens  desto  wiirdiger 
zu  dienen."^  Scarcely  less  remarkable  is  the  poet's  confession 
to  his  friend  Moser  that  he  has  a  rubber  soul:  "Ich  kann  Dir 
das  nicht  oft  genug  wiederholen,  damit  Du  mich  nicht  misst 
nach  dem  Massstabe  Deiner  eigenen  grossen  Seele.  Die 
meinige  ist  Gummi  elastic,  zieht  sich  oft  ins  Lmendliche 
und  verschrumpft  oft  ins  Winzige.  Aber  eine  Seele  habe  ich 
doch.  I  am  positive,  I  have  a  soul,  so  gut  wie  Sterne. 
Das  geniige  Dir.  Liebe  mich  um  der  wunderlichen  Sorte 
Gefiihls  willen,  die  sich  bei  mir  ausspricht  in  Thorheit  und 
Weisheit,  in  Giite  und  Schlechtigkeit.  Liebe  mich,  weil  es 
Dir  nun  mal  so  einfallt,  nicht,  weil  Du  mich  der  Liebe  wert 
hiiltst.  .  .  .  Ich  hatte  einen  Polen  zum  Freund,  fiir  den  ich 
mich  bis  zu  Tod  besofifen  hatte,  oder,  besser  gesagt,  fur  den  ich 
mich  hatte  totschlagen  lassen,  und  fiir  den  ich  mich  noch 
totschlagen  Hesse,  und  der  Kerl  taugte  fiir  keinen  Pfennig, 

'  "Manfred."  Coleridge  ed.,  IV,  p.  loi. 

2  Werke  VI,  p.  48. 

'  Karpeles  ed.  Werke,  VIII,  p.  541. 


84 

und  war  venerisch,  imd  hatte  die  schlechtesten  Grundsatze — 
aber  er  hatte  einen  Kehllaut,  mit  welchem  er  atif  so  wunder- 
liche  Weise  das  Wort  'Was?'  sprechen  konnte,  dass  ich  in 
diesem  Augenblick  weineii  und  lachen  muss,  wenn  ich  daran 
denke."^ 

Taking  him  all  in  all  then,  Heine  is  not  a  serious  personality, 
a  fact  which  we  need  to  keep  constantly  in  mind  in  judging 
almost  any  and  every  side  of  his  nature. 

As  a  matter  of  fact,  Heine's  Weltschmerz,  like  his  whole 
personality,  is  of  so  complex  and  contradictory  a  nature,  that 
it  would  be  a  hopeless  undertaking  to  attempt  to  weigh  each 
contributing  factor  and  estimate  exactly  the  amount  of  its 
influence.  All  the  elements  which  have  been  briefly  noted  in 
the  foregoing  pages,  and  probably  many  minor  ones  which 
have  not  been  mentioned,  combined  to  produce  in  him  that 
"Zerrissenheit"  which  finds  such  frequent  expression  in  his 
writings.  But  it  must  be  remembered  that  this  "Zerrissen- 
heit"  does  not  always  express  itself  as  Weltschmerz.  In 
Heine  it  often  appears  simply  as  pugnacity ;  and  where  wit, 
satire,  self-irony  or  even  base  calumny  succeeds  in  covering  up 
all  traces  of  the  poet's  pathos  we  are  no  longer  justified  on 
sentimental  or  sympathetic  grounds  in  taking  it  for  granted. 
In  looking  for  pathos  in  Heine's  verse  we  shall  not  have  to 
look  in  vain,  it  is  true,  but  we  shall  find  much  less  than  his 
popular  reputation  as  a  poet  of  Weltschmerz  would  lead  us 
to  expect ;  and  we  frequently  gain  the  impression  that  his  dis- 
position and  his  personal  experiences  are  after  all  largely  the 
excuse  for  rather  than  the  occasion  of  his  Weltschmerz. 

Pliimacher  maintains :  "Der  Weltschmerz  ist  entweder  die 
absolute  Passivitat,  und  die  Klage  seine  einzige  Aeusserung, 
oder  aber  er  verpufft  seine  Krafte  in  rein  subjectivistischen, 
eudamonischen  Anstrengungen,"- — a  characterization  which 
certainly  holds  good  in  the  case  of  Lenau  and  Holderlin  re- 
spectively. Holderlin,  although  in  a  visionary,  idealistic  way, 
remains,  even  in  his  Weltschmerz,  altrviistic  and  constructive. 
Lenau  is  passive,  while  Heine  is  solely  egoistic  and  destructive. 

^  Karpeles  ed.  Werke,  VIII,  p.   399. 

^Plumacher:   "Der  Pessimismus."     Heidelberg,   1888,  p.   103. 


CHAPTER  V 

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Magnus,  Lady.     Jewish  Portraits.     London,  1888.  p.  45-81. 
(Originally  in  Macmillan's  Magazine  for  1883.) 

Meiszner,    Alfred.     Heinrich    Heine.     Erinnerungen.     Ham- 
burg, 1856. 

Melchior,  Felix.     Heinrich  Heines  Verhaltnis  zu  Lord  Byron. 
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91 

Nietzki,  M.     Heine  als  Dichter  und  Mensch.     Berlin,  1895. 
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Nollen.     Heine    imd    Wilhelm    Miiller.     Mod.    Lang,    Notes, 

April,  1902. 
Proelss,  Robert.     Heinrich  Heine.     Sein  Lebensgang  und  seine 

Schriften.     Stuttgart,  1886. 
Rahmer,     S.       Heinrich     Heines     Krankheit     und     Leidens- 

geschichte.     Eine  kritische  Studie.     Berlin,  1902. 
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Hartleben,  1882. 
Sandvoss,   Franz.     Was  diinket  Euch  urn   Heine?     Ein  Be- 

kenntnis,     Leipzig,  1888. 
Schmidt,  Julian.     Bilder  aus  dem  geistigen  Leben  unsrer  Zeit. 

Leipzig,  1870-71.     Heine,  Bd.  2,  p.  283-350. 
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1884. 
Sharp.  William.     Life  of  Heinrich  Heine.     London,  1888. 
Sintenis,  F.     H.  Heine;  ein  Vortrag.     Dorpat,  1877. 
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London,  1875. 
Strodtmann,  Adolf.     Heinrich  Heine's  Wirken  und  Streben, 

Dargestellt  an  seinen  Werken.     Hamburg,  1857. 

—  Immortellen  Heinrich  Heine's.     Berlin,  1871. 

—  H.  Heine's  Leben  und  Werke.     HI  Aufl.     Berlin,  1884. 
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1900. 
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1883. 


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CENTRAL  UNIVERSITY  LIBRARY 
University  of  California,  San  Diego 


DATE  DUE 

APR  I  s  I9M 

|iPR  16  ROT 

JW171S7S 

J  UN  3    REC'O 

;im  0  5  KtwiM 

jUN  ^U  1977 

TJbiritm?]Q7  7 

15T.  \^    1  [J     'Ji  / 

JUW07  1979 

C139 

UCSD  Libr. 

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